Getting to the Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park

What’s it going to take to get to the trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park? A little advance planning and some patience. 

Rocky Mountain National Park has so many fantastic hiking trails that are very popular. Over the years, getting to these trails have become increasingly more difficult with increased visitation. The line of cars to get into the Park are longer and finding parking often involves using shuttle busses. And even then, sometimes the parking spaces are just used up!

A line forms waiting for a shuttle bus at the Park-and-Ride

The increase numbers of visitors to Rocky has pushed the Park into the third most visited Park in the country. And yet, it is still possible to hop on a trail and hike past all the business and reconnect with the beauty of the mountains. The Park isn’t necessarily being overrun by too many people. It’s being overrun by too many cars. ​

Park officials have tried to respond. It’s now possible to Park your car east of the Town of Estes and catch the Hiker Shuttle that heads you straight into the Park. But, there’s still more work to be done. It would be great if there was a dedicated lane for the shuttle busses to pass the long line of cars waiting to go through the entrance gates, for example. 

​This year, in response to coronavirus concerns, the Park is trying out a reservation system to limit the number of cars entering the Park and spreading the people congestion throughout the day. Last Sunday, I got to try it out. My hiking partner and I decided we would get a reservation to go into the Park between 8am and 10am. I signed up on recreation.gov the previous week and found plenty of spaces available. That may change as people begin to learn about the reservation system.

Crossing Tyndall Creek on the way to Dream Lake.

I printed my copy of the reservation out so that I had a paper ticket, but that reservation ticket can also be kept on the phone. It’s like buying a ticket for a concert these days. With paper ticket in hand, we got on the road at just before 9 and found a short line as we approached the Beaver Meadow visitor center. 

Park officials had set up something like a road block there and were prescreening people. If you had your reservation, they waved you through and you could then advance to the entrance gate. If you did not, they waved you over to the visitor center parking lot where you could get your reservation made. It was an attempt to keep the cars flowing instead of things getting clogged up at the entrance gate. It made sense to me 

and once we reached the entrance gate, we flowed though pretty quickly. They wanted to see my reservation and my Park Pass.

​Our next decision was about whether we should take our chances with trailhead parking or just go straight to the Park-and-Ride lot and take the shuttle, like we ended up doing last week. Just as we were contemplating that question, a flashing road sign notified us the the Bear Lake parking lot was full and to use the Park-and-Ride. Decision made.

A line forms to cross Tyndall Creek on the Emerald Lake trail

At the Park-and-Ride, we found a pretty lengthy line forming to ride the shuttle. It was a little before 9:30. The Park volunteer said this was the longest line that had formed for the shuttle rides yet. Although almost everyone was wearing a mask, there was no maintaining any social distancing here. Nobody really knows how seriously to take the covid virus 

risk these days. We were all outside and the masks kind of helped us feel protected. I got a little tickle up my nose and wanted to sneeze. That might bring on some social distancing! I suppressed my sneeze.

​The Park is currently running five shuttle busses between the Park-and-Ride and the Bear Lake parking lot. It takes a bus about 30 min to make the round trip. In order to keep people safe while riding the bus, they’re only allowing about 15-20 people on a bus. People were patient while they waited. It looked like the 4th and 5th shuttle bus didn’t come on line until 9:30, so that may have delayed out time. It took us a little over an hour to finally get to the trail head.