Before heading off on our 3 week trip overseas, Shae and I visited Rocky Mountain National Park. They had two types of entrance tickets available – one with access to the entire park including Bear Lake Rd and one that gives access to the whole park other than Bear Lake Rd.
We’d only been able to get tickets to the non-Bear Lake Rd portion of the park before we went away, so just before we headed overseas I managed to get us a ticket for Bear Lake Rd for after we got back.
Bear Lake Rd has several stops along it with lots of trails available taking you to numerous lakes. We decided to hike up to Mills Lake and then I continued on to Jewel Lake as it was only a little further along the trail. It was a beautiful hike, so we’d definitely recommend it as a hiking option when visiting Rocky Mountain National Park.
Here’s more about our hike showing why we liked it so much.
How To Get Rocky Mountain National Park Tickets
At the time of writing this post in September 2021, you have to reserve a specific date and time to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. Tickets can be purchased from Recreation.gov and tickets for the following month go on sale on the first of the previous month. For example, we wanted to get a ticket for the beginning of September, so I got that as soon as they became available on August 1. The ticket you buy is for a specific date and for a two hour entry period. For example, our ticket required that we arrive at Bear Lake Rd between 11am and 1pm.
25% of permits are held for sale at 5pm the day before they’re valid, so that’s another opportunity if you aren’t able to reserve a month before and tickets subsequently sell out.
As mentioned earlier, there are two types of tickets – one with access to the entire park including Bear Lake Rd and one without access to Bear Lake Rd. Tickets with access to Bear Lake Rd are more popular, so those sell out more quickly.
Tickets purchased from Recreation.gov only cost $2 per vehicle, then you have to pay the regular entrance fee once you arrive at Rocky Mountain National Park. That costs $25 per vehicle (you can find the latest fee list here), but it’s free if you have a National Parks annual pass like we do.
Where To Park at Bear Lake Rd
When driving along Bear Lake Rd there are several stops, each of which have a small parking area. As a result, it’s often hard to find a parking space. Thankfully Rocky Mountain National Park has a great solution as they offer a free shuttle service taking you to the different sites along Bear Lake Rd.
To take advantage of the shuttle, you can park at the Park & Ride lot – here’s a link to its location on Google Maps in case you want to get directions.
The shuttle then takes the following route:
- Bierstadt Lake Trailhead
- Glacier Gorge Trailhead
- Bear Lake
- Glacier Gorge Trailhead
- Bierstadt Lake Trailhead
- Park & Ride lot
Shae and I took the shuttle to Bear Lake to have some lunch before setting off on our hike. We then hopped back on the shuttle back to Glacier Gorge Trailhead as that’s the trailhead you start from if you want to visit Mills Lake and Jewel Lake.
Hiking To Mills Lake & Jewel Lake Via Alberta Falls
The Glacier Gorge trailhead has a few different hiking options. The easiest takes you up to Alberta Falls; from there you can continue along the trail. You can then continue left up to Mills Lake or right to the Loch. Those trails both continue in their respective directions to even more lakes if you want to elongate your hike.
When we set off, we were only planning on visiting Mills Lake via Alberta Falls.
The trail followed Tyndall Creek for a little while before crossing over it.
The trail continues upwards, but the trail wasn’t too strenuous.
The trails at Rocky Mountain National Park seem to be very well marked, not only providing clear directions, but letting you know distances too.
Keep an eye out for wildlife during your visit as we saw lots of chipmunks (and possibly ground squirrels) along our hike.
Within about half an hour we arrived at Alberta Falls.
There are rocks to the right of Alberta Falls you can walk up which don’t require much clambering. We therefore headed up there and got some good views of the area.
Having checked out Alberta Falls, we headed back down the rocks and continued up the Glacier Gorge trail towards Mills Lake.
Chipmunks and ground squirrels aren’t the only wildlife we saw along the trail – we saw several deer too.
At one point Shae spotted a small offshoot, so we walked along it and were greeted with these lovely views from a rocky overlook.
Once again, the trails are well marked and we appreciated knowing that we only had 1.1 miles to go until we reached Mills Lake.
The earlier overlook wasn’t the only place with great views as you get stunning vistas all along the Glacier Gorge trail.
The trail marker two photos above showed that we had 1.1 miles to Mills Lake or 1.3 miles to Loch Vale. Unfortunately that didn’t mean that we only had to hike an additional 0.2 miles if we wanted to visit Loch Vale. That’s because the trail splits into two, with the route heading to the left taking you to Mills Lake and the route to the right taking you to Loch Vale and Sky Pond.
We met some hikers on the way back who’d hiked up to Sky Pond and they said that was beautiful too, so it seems you can’t go wrong with either route.
The trail had us crossing over a couple of bridges across a brook and creek…
…up some more steps…
..and we were at Mills Lake.
I was curious if I could make it out to the rock in the photo above by walking along the log leading up to it. It turns out that I sort of could. Just as I went to leap across, my foot slipped and I ended up with one foot in the water.
It was worth trying though as it meant being able to get some photos closer to the center of the lake. The views of the Rocky Mountains surrounding the lake were incredible.
As we were heading up to Mills Lake, I’d been checking our progress on Google Maps. While doing that, I noticed that Jewel Lake was only a little further up the trail.
Shae wanted to relax next to Mills Lake, so I continued up to Jewel Lake by myself.
I’m glad I did that. Although Jewel Lake was smaller, I was the only one there and so it was extremely peaceful. It also meant I was closer to the mountains in the distance which made for an even more beautiful backdrop, like something from a Bob Ross painting.
Here’s a video I took of the lake and the surrounding area.
As you can see, hiking to Mills Lake and Jewel Lake is a beautiful way to see just some of what Rocky Mountain National Park has to offer.
[…] Check out this post for more about our Mills Lake hike. […]