RV Trip 2024 - Rocky Mountain National Park

We spent our first few days in the Estes Park area hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. The Park has nearly 4.5 million visitors per year and from May to October they implement a timed entry system. It’s a complicated process to make entrance reservations….they make them available a month in advance and they sell out in minutes. The Park Service does a fantastic job of handling the large number of visitors and everything runs pretty smoothly. The parking lots at the popular trailheads fill quickly so it’s best to use their shuttle bus system to get to the trails. About five miles inside the Park, they have a huge parking lot where you can leave your vehicle and catch a bus. Shuttle buses run about every 10 minutes and stop at several different trailheads. The first hike we did was the Emerald Lake Trail which begins at Bear Lake. The trail takes you to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and ends at Emerald Lake. We saw several fishermen trying their luck at the lakes. The trout were easy to spot in the clear lake water. We saw quite a few rock climbers hiking the trail carrying their huge “crash pads” on their backs. They place the unfolded pads on the ground to protect them if they fall. There were still some snow patches along the trail. Emerald Lake is fed by snowmelt but that didn’t stop a few people from swimming. When we finished the hike we decided to do the short hike around Bear Lake while we were there. The next day we did a loop hike from the Glacier Gorge trailhead. The trail took us by the 30-foot tall Alberta Falls. We got a bit lost after missing a turn. We finally found it after backtracking a bit. It wasn’t much wider than a game trail and we only saw three other people on it. I consulted my map on my phone several times to make sure we were headed the right way. We spooked a young moose as we came down the trail. It ran ahead of us and then stopped right on the trail. We waited until it moved on before continuing and kept an eye out for its mother.
Pearce Roswell/There For You/courtesy of epidemicsound.com

[@NewHorizonsTravel]

Explore the stunning Rocky Mountain National Park on a journey. Thank you for sharing 🥰💖

[@garlandstyle5797]

Gorgeous sights! Thanks 😀