Rocky Mountain National Park is known for its alpine and subalpine vistas. The easiest way to get these views is by driving the Trail Ridge Road which traverses the entire length of the park from east to west. This is also the only intra-park route to see both the east and west developed parts of the park.
Driving the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park
Trail Ridge Road runs the entire length of the National Park, from Estes Park on the east side to Grand Lake on the west side. You can take the road in either direction so it doesn’t matter where you are starting from. Along the drive you will climb over 4,000 feet in a short time.
This road is sometimes referred to as nature’s knife edge. As you drive it you can see why, shear cliff always drop away on one side of the road, and sometimes both. Even in the middle of summer there was still snow in several places along the road side. There are pullouts at intervals along the road for you to stop at.
If you are prone to motion sickness or a fear of heights this might end up being too much for you. In fact, we intended to do the whole drive, but only ended up going as far as the Alpine visitor center. It was a little to nerve racking for me.
Alpine Visitor Center
The Alpine Visitor Center is located about half way along Trail Ridge Road. There is a large parking lot here and a visitor center that looks kind of like a lodge because of the logs on the roof. It turns out though that the logs are there to keep the roof from blowing away! It gets very windy up so high.
Since we were visiting in 2020 the services at all visitor centers were limited. The exhibits here were closed and just the gift shop was open. There is also a restaurant and general store here. There are restrooms across the parking lot from the visitor center, so be sure to stop here if you are driving the whole trail.
Between the visitor center and the general store there is an awesome overlook where we saw some elk from far away. This would have been a good place to have binoculars with us.
Alpine Ridge Trail
At the far end of the parking lot at the Alpine Visitor Center we saw lots of people walking up a trail to the top of a mountain. This is the Alpine Ridge Trail and it takes you up to a point at 12,005 feet. It is only about half a mile round trip, but that is a little deceiving.
This trail is not difficult and most of the elevation gain happens on steps, but it is very high so if you are not use to altitude it could prove quite difficult. It can also be extremely windy. My mom and I went all the way to the top and I almost lost both my hat and my face mask on our way up.
Since this is not to far of a walk I do think this trail is worth doing while you are up in the area. You get to see the tundra ecosystem up close, and if you are there at the right time you will even see tiny little resilient wild flowers.
Sum Up
Trail Ridge Road is one of the big attractions of Rocky Mountain National Park. If you feel like you can handle the curvy mountain roads and the heights then it is definitely something you should do. I had a hard time with it though so it is difficult for me to just recommend it. I’m happy we did it, but I probably wouldn’t do it again.
If you want to see this and other adventures be sure to watch our Rocky Mountain National Park vlog.
