Meaghan Webster | Public Affairs

How to spend a beautiful day in the park even if you aren’t able to secure a permit for the popular Bear Lake corridor.

My friends and I recently attended a late-June wedding in the Rocky Mountains outside Denver, Colorado, so naturally I wanted to find a way to squeeze Rocky Mountain National Park into our trip.

However, due to this park’s proximity to many communities and semi-urban areas, it is extremely popular, and the National Park Service has implemented a timed-entry system during peak months (May 22 – Oct 12).

In addition to needing a timed-entry permit in advance of visiting, if you want to visit the Bear Lake Corridor, which appears to contain some of the park’s most iconic views and trailheads, you need an additional timed-entry permit, which can be harder to obtain.

We were able to secure entry to the park for 11am on a Sunday, but we were not able to secure the Bear Lake permit. Here’s how we made the most of our day in the park anyway. We had a great time!

Stop at Beaver Meadows Visitor Center

We were staying outside Golden, Colorado for our weekend trip, so we approached the park from the southeast, which meant we entered via Estes Park. The first visitor center we came across was Beaver Meadows, which was a great spot to refill water, use the restroom, and look at park maps.

Immediately after continuing into the park from Beaver Meadows, we enjoyed spotting deer and elk along the road.

Drive Trail Ridge Road

We continued on counter-clockwise around the park loop, which took us onto Trail Ridge Road: a beautiful route that provides panoramic views of the surrounding mountains, tundra, wildflowers, lava flows, and vast forests of the park.

Trail Ridge Road is the highest elevation continuously paved road in the contiguous United States, rising to above 12,000 feet in places. It can get very windy up there!

Stops Along the Way

There are many viewpoints along Trail Ridge Road where you can stop and walk a little to enjoy the views. It gets very windy and is much colder up here than at the park’s entrance, so we were glad to have jackets with us. One stop we especially enjoyed was the Alpine Visitor Center, which is the highest elevation visitor center in the National Park system. We had the fortunate of seeing quite a few elk while we were there!

Take a Hike: Adams Falls Trail from East Inlet Trailhead

Since we couldn’t hike from Bear Lake, we used Alltrails to identify highly rated hikes in other sections of the park. This led us to continue counter-clockwise on the Trail Ridge Road loop until we reached the southwest corner of the park, near Grand Lake.

From the East Inlet Trailhead there, we hiked to Adams Falls, and continued on a little further where we enjoyed watching people fly fish in the ponds surrounded by forest and mountain views.

Drive back via Winter Park

Rather than driving back the way we came, we continued south from Grand Lake out of the park, driving back to Golden via Winter Park, where stopped at Deno’s for an early dinner on the way back.

We enjoyed scenic views as we crossed the mountain passes south of the park and ski resorts, making it back to Golden by 7pm for a restful evening.

I know someday we’ll be back to experience Bear Lake, but in the meantime, this was an excellent introduction to Rocky Mountain National Park!