We managed to plan a trip to see all 4 National parks in the state of Colorado. It would have been awesome to spend some more time at some of the places however trying to fit them all in left us with only a few days at each place. I will just jump right into it.
Tuesday we drove from a fun little town called Craig Co. to an amazing little camp group near Grand Lake Co. It was very close to the park and beautifully located right on a lake. The Green Ridge Campground wasn’t super private and lacked shade trees but, the location made it somewhere I would stay again in a heartbeat. The bathrooms were clean and the kids were able to walk to the lake to try their hand at fishing one morning. There are also trails that are park of Rocky Mountains trail list located directly across the dam at the lake. Seriously this place was great and I would recommend. If you are planning a trip and can’t reserve a spot in the park to camp….this is the place you want to be!
After we set up camp we headed right to the park. It took less than 10 minutes to get to the west entrance and before we even got to the visitor center or entrance booth, we we blessed to see 2 female moose right on the road side. One thing to mention is that you are required to have a reservation to enter the park currently. We had made sure that we had our reservation printed out and ready. There was hardly a line at all to enter the park and it went very smoothly.
My kiddos love to take part in the Junior Ranger programs at each park we go to and try to earn their badge. We were a little afraid with many placed being closed that they would have to miss this part of their experience while in Co. but to our great pleasure all by Mesa Verde had packets ready for kids to pick up and badges handed over to parents to hold onto until all requirements were met. Rocky Mountain went above and beyond with an adorable little backpack, binoculars, work book and pencil.
Once we had books in hand and had made our way past the gate, we were off to explore the park. None of my family had been here before ( or at least not that we could remember). We found several more moose including a young bull moose and a handsome buck deer along our drive through the parks west side. We also stopped to take a small hike were we were able to see a beautiful mother moose and baby resting in the trees right along the trail, a huge herd of Elk off in the distance, a large male elk with a beautiful rack, and another female moose grazing in the meadow. It was a great first stop.
The park was full of moose and elk. We were also happy to find big horn sheep and some fun mice looking things ( I’m terrified of mice but these were fat adorable little things almost like chinchillas or something). We saw several waterfalls and beautiful steams and lakes.
On two occasions we were lucky enough to have massive bull moose walk right by us, so close I was a tad worried they were going to try to get in our vehicle! I would love to put this warning out there though, Wild animals are wild. We have a duty to give them space when we can. Please do not chase animals and always give them room to go where they were trying to go. I will add an image of a someone who needed to get an extra close up I guess and it could have turned very ugly very fast but lucky for him, this moose simply wanted to get away from people and get to the other side of the road. Be careful and watch from a safe distance please.
Honestly, Rocky Mountain was beautiful and I would love to go back to visit maybe in a different season. Being there during the elk rut sounds like a dream come true. If you plan to visit this park keep in mind that you need a reservation, the weather was perfect in July and we had rain every single day. The afternoons were filled with storms and we loved it. I assume it gets cold rather early in the fall but I would imagine it is gorgeous and the colors would be something else but summer was nice an cool and pleasant. The east side was full of people hitting all the most beautiful spots in the park, spots we didn’t end up seeing due to how many people filled the parking lots. In the off season I’m sure these spots are well worth stopping for but I would suggest staying on that side of the park since the drive from one side to the other is quite long and it would be best to focus your efforts on each side on different days.
Have you been to Rocky Mountain National Park? What are your favorite things about the park? Where do you like to spend your time? I would love to use all of your tips for my next trip there.
