Two Visits To Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park was the fourth most visited National Park in 2020 and it’s not hard to see why. Mountains, lakes, wildlife and more mean there’s a lot of natural beauty to appreciate, while hiking trails help you see even more of the park.

We visited the park twice while staying in Denver on our 50 state road trip. The first time was in late July 2021 just before we headed overseas for a few weeks, with our second visit being at the beginning of September 2021 just after we got back from that trip.

Here’s more about our two visits to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Why We Visited Twice

The reason we went for a second time wasn’t just because it’s a beautiful National Park. There are two types of visitor tickets – one with access to the entire park including Bear Lake Rd and one which doesn’t include access to Bear Lake Rd. For our first visit the Bear Lake Rd tickets had sold out, so we wanted to return to check out that part of the park.

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.

Visit 1 – Trail Ridge Rd

For our first visit, we drove the entire way through the park along Trail Ridge Rd. Trail Ridge Rd is closed in the winter, so be aware of that if you’re planning a visit.

We entered the park at the Fall River Entrance on the northeast side of the park and exited at the Grand Lake Entrance on the southwest side of the park. That’s a 41.3 mile trip, much of which is spent driving fairly slowly seeing as you’re going through the mountains. That means you need to allow yourself plenty of time if you’re planning on driving the entire length of Trail Ridge Rd as there are a lot of places to stop along the way too.

Before actually entering the park, we stopped at the Fall River Visitor Center to get some more information about the park and to get the Rocky Mountain National Park stamp for our National Parks Passport.

Our timed entry ticket was for entry between 1pm and 3pm. We got there at about 1:45pm, so our first stop was the Hidden Valley picnic spot. There was some bad weather starting to roll in, so we were grateful that it had a picnic shelter protecting us while we looked out at the mountains.

After having lunch, we hopped back in the car and continued along Trail Ridge Rd. There are many overlooks along the way that give you different perspectives of the park.

Shortly after stopping at the Rainbow Curve Overlook, we spotted what initially looked like a sandy area as it didn’t seem white enough – or cold enough – to be snow or ice. That area appeared to have some kind of wildlife on it, so we pulled over into a gravel parking area.

When spending some more time looking at it, it seemed like it was an ice patch after all. There was indeed wildlife on there – we think it must have been deer, elk or moose.

Our next stop after trying to identify that wildlife was Forest Canyon Overlook. This looked out over a tundra area, with an information board providing some information about the rock formations.

Forest Canyon Overlook has a short trail you can walk up to get even better views of the area. When looking over the side of the platform at the end of the trail, we spotted a marmot burrowing around.

The road continues uphill until you reach Trail Ridge Rd Summit – the road’s highest point at 12,183 ft. Due to its elevation, there was still some snow on the ground despite it being mid-July.

We were meeting up with some people for dinner that evening, so we had to hustle it through the rest of the park, although we did stop off quickly at Poudre Lake on the way out.

Visit 2 – Bear Lake Rd

For our second visit we were able to get a ticket for Bear Lake Rd. That meant we were able to see the main other section of the park that we’d missed out on during our first visit.

Bear Lake Rd is much shorter than Trail Ridge Rd. While Trail Ridge Rd is just over 40 miles long, Bear Lake Rd is just under 10 miles. Despite being about a quarter of the length, Bear Lake Rd still has a lot to see.

We parked at the Park & Ride lot and took the free shuttle bus down to Bear Lake.

Bear Lake has a trail running around it that’s about 0.6 miles long. We walked part of the way along it until we found a good spot to have a picnic.

Rather than walking the entire length of the Bear Lake trail, we headed back to the shuttle bus and rode up to the Glacier Gorge trailhead. That’s because we were wanting to hike up to Mills Lake via Alberta Falls.

The hike up to Mills Lake was fantastic – not too strenuous, but with lots of beautiful scenery along the way. Mills Lake and its surroundings were stunning too.

I then continued a little further up the trail to check out Jewel Lake – a smaller lake, but one which was just as beautiful and peaceful.

Check out this post for more about our Mills Lake hike.

Are Pets Allowed At Rocky Mountain National Park?

Pets are allowed in Rocky Mountain National Park, but the activities you can do with them are limited. That’s because pets aren’t allowed on any trails, tundra or meadows.

That means the only areas they’re allowed to be are on roads, parking areas, campgrounds and picnic areas. For our first visit we took Truffles with us because we knew we’d just be driving through the park and stopping at overlooks – places she was allowed to be.

For our second visit we knew we’d want to go hiking, so we left her with a pet-sitter for the day.

Final Thoughts

Rocky Mountain National Park is a beautiful park. Trail Ridge Rd has a lot of great scenic overlooks, while Bear Lake Rd has several hiking opportunities taking you to beautiful lakes. It’s definitely worth making the effort to check out Rocky Mountain National Park if you’ll be visiting Colorado.