Picture Yourself in a Mountain Playground

   
Just to the north of Boulder, Colorado, sits the Rocky Mountain National Park and cover an area of over 450 square miles of the northern Front Range. The great Continental Divide splits the park right in half almost precisely and there are many trails leading to and crossing the divide. Three hundred and fifty five miles of scenic nature and hiking trails. The elevation gets as high as 14,000 feet and the wet valleys are found at around 8,000 feet, although you can find the even higher as well. The Native Americans have visited the park to take from it abundance of wildlife for over 10,000 years.

The dominating peak that can be seen throughout the whole park, towering high in the sky line is known as “Longs Peak”. The most popular trekking path heads to the top of this monstrous peak, starting at an elevation of 9400 feet and ends nearly 7.5 miles later at the peak, some 14,200 feet above sea level. Even though the Longs Peak trail is a popular path for most it is classified as a technical trail during most of the year, due to dangerous snow and ice conditions. The trail is only non-technical during a very short time in the summer but this may not always be the case. This trail usually gets pretty crowded during the weekends and parking can be hard to find, so to avoid the rush it's best to start before sun up to get a parking spot and to get a good head start on the crowd. Panoramic views from the peak of the mountain are well worth the tough up hill hike.

Another hiking trail that is quite popular with the more experienced crowd is the Keyhole Route, which is mostly above the treeline, so if bad weather strikes there is no way to escape from it. Hiking this trail is very intense and strenuous on the physical body of even the most fit. Hikers should come very well prepared when attempting to trek along the Keyhole path because the weather and other hazardous conditions are very unpredictable sometimes on days are their brightest bad weather can spring up without warning. Park rangers can accompany you on short hike without a charge and this is recommended before taking on on of the bigger trails, especially if you are a novice mountaineer. The rangers will educate you on the “leave no trace” policy that hiker and climbers should practice in order to preserve the beauty of the park. All hikers should follow this principle while in the park.

Rocky Mountain National Park is very passionate about keeping the pristine beauty of the land intact by keeping the environmental footprint that people leave behind at a minimum. That camp has many campsites but many practice the “leave no trace policy” and usually if you make your stay at these campsites then you are in for a rugged camping experience. You will only be able to set up camp using a tent in most of the campgrounds in the park, RV's are usually not allowed deep in the park. There are many campgrounds that have all the amenities needed for those traveling to the area in an RV. Before entering the park you will find many lodges and full hotels to choose from and many are only a few minutes drive from the park entrance. There are many back country adventures to be had in the park as well such as fishing and rock climbing, just picture yourself in a mountain playground and all that you could do, you'll most likely have the perfect image of RMNP.