Rocky Mountain National Park officially states that is has more than 360 miles of hiking trails with in its borders. Obviously, in our one week visit we only hiked a small fraction of these hikes, but I feel that we did see the best highlights of the park. If we had one extra day, I think we would have tried the long hike out to Lawn Lake - two different park rangers suggested to us that would be an enjoyable hike. With an additional day after that, I would have added a hike to Balanced Rock in the morning, and then, if the afternoon weather looked good, do the 6 mile round trip up Deer Mountain in the afternoon. Somewhere I would find the time to hike the one mile trail around beautiful Lily Lake, and maybe pull in at Sprague Lake. There is a lot to see in this park!
The key to an enjoyable visit is getting a very early start each morning. An early start means you will beat the traffic, you will get a parking spot at the trailheads, you have a better chance of seeing animals such as elk near the road, and it allows you to do an extended hike and still get below the timberline before the summer lightning storms pick up in the afternoon. The weather in these mountains can be really dynamic.
Driving to Rocky Mountain National Park from Denver is easy and quick. Make sure you have reservations for lodging because the park is full of visitors during the summer months. We booked our room in February for a September visit.
Item | US dollars | Comments | |
| Round trip tickets to Denver | $559.80 | Frontier & Alaska Airline | |
| Supershuttle | $45.00 | Ride from Denver airport to Hertz in Broomfield | |
| Hertz car rental | $180.72 | Six day rental of Dodge Avenger. We drove 441 miles. | |
| Sinclair Gas | $30.00 | Fill up car in Estes Park. | |
| Valero Gas | $39.00 | Fill up car before returning. | |
| Park-n-Jet | $50.21 | Seven days parking outside of SeaTac airport. | |
Transport Total | $904.73 | ||
| Murphy's River Lodge | $847.50 | Seven nights in Estes Park (7th night is free) | |
Lodging Total | $847.50 | ||
| Rocky Mtn Park Admission | $20 | One week national park pass | |
| Souvenirs | $15.50 | Rocky Mtn T-shirt and magnet. | |
| Souvenir | $20.69 | Rocky Mountain Geology Book. | |
Entertainment Total | $56.19 | ||
| Dairy Queen | $5.09 | Snack in Boulder. | |
| Cheesy Lee's Pizza | $28.00 | Saturday dinner. 14" Amazing Summit pizza | |
| 2 Liters Diet Coke | $2.65 | Purchased at Cheesy Lee's | |
| McDonalds | $14.06 | Sunday dinner | |
| Dairy Queen | $7.40 | Sunday dessert. | |
| Chicago's Best Pizza | $28.00 | Monday dinner | |
| Penelope's Best Burgers | $28.00 | Tuesday dinner | |
| Lonighan's | $27.00 | Two fish & chips dinners on Wednesday night. | |
| Dairy Queen | $5.57 | Wednesday dessert. | |
| Dairy Queen | $5.57 | Thursday snack | |
| Cheesy Lee's Pizza | $20.41 | 14" Pizza to go. Thursday dinner. | |
| Big Horn Restaurant | $38.96 | Friday dinner. | |
Food Total | $210.71 | ||
| Grand Total | $2019.13 |
Here are the three hiking guides that we used when deciding which trails to do. In my opinion, the Outdoor Family Guide is the best. It has clear maps and trail descriptions. The Falcon Guide has more trail descriptions (Outdoor Family Guide missed some obvious trails, such as the Twin Sisters Hike), and a nice chart in the back of the book showing each the distance and elevation gain for each hike. The Complete Hiking Guide is a bigger book, full of color pictures and maps. It describes every single trail, but it is too heavy to carry around, we ended up leaving it at home.
This map is excellent. The only map you will need.
