We didn’t originally plan to visit Rocky Mountain National Park on our roadtrip, but isn’t that the fun of being on a flexible schedule? After a great night in Denver, we left the city behind and headed into the Mountains. Our original plan was to meander on I-70 West toward Ouray, but we called an “audible” and took the 2-hour detour North through Boulder and Estes Park to check out the Park.
Our initial reaction to our time in the park was “Wow, this place is AMAZING”, and the second was “We could spend a week here, easy”. We didn’t have a week to spare, so we made the most of our couple of hours in the park and got a taste for all the park has to offer:
Hiking in the Bear Lake Area: We chose this short, scenic hike near the Park entrance to get a taste of the terrain and the views the park offers. Even on a Monday, we had to park in an overflow lot and ride a shuttle bus to the trailhead of this popular network of trails. (Note: great hike for families incl. small kiddos). We only hiked 2-3 miles, but the scenery was breathtaking — alpine lakes and views of soaring mountain ranges. At our turn-around point (Dream Lake) we were nearing 10,000 ft in elevation.
Driving the Trail Ridge Road: This is a great paved road that loops around the Park taking drivers above the tree line (north of 12,000 ft in elevation) and providing great photo opportunities. There is also a visitor center/food stop/gift shop at the mid-point — good place to pick up some national park swag and gifts for petsitters 😉 On our drive, we were lucky enough to see Elk right by the road, which was really cool! The loop drive took us a couple of hours and allowed us to exit the Park from the West near Grand Lake – to continue our journey to Ouray!
We made it safely to Ouray by 9:30 PM, managed to setup camp quickly, and pass out after a full day in Colorado! Only 3 days into the trip and we feel like we’ve already done and seen so much!
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