Visiting Rocky Mountain National Park | RMNP Visitor Guide

I’m Kim The Abundant Traveler and welcome to the channel today is all about Rocky Mountain National Park and two ways to get up to the highest visitor center in a national park in the united states the alpine visitor center in this video I’m going to share your two ways you can get up to the alpine visitor center the first is with the widely traveled trail ridge road the other is with fall river road that is only open in the summer there’s going to be great scenery tips tricks and hacks to make your trip to rocky mountain and national park even better make sure to subscribe to the channel that’s the red button below give this video a thumbs up and ring that notification bell it means the world to me and helps support the youtube channel if you have any tips or tricks for Rocky Mountain National Park please leave them in the comments below because I am definitely coming back to this exquisite place on the face of this earth so a few little details about the park it was established in 1915 there are over 256 thousand acres of land here and more than 800 miles of trails there are about four and a half million visitors that come to this park every single year unbelievable it’s the third or fourth most visited national park in the country I’m not sure if it’s third or fourth I couldn’t get a definite answer in the research that I did of the 55 14ers only one is in the national park and it is long’s peak it is 14 259 feet there are four entrances into the park two in estes park you have beaver meadows and fall river and then on the opposite side of the park you have grand lake about 30 minutes away south to from estes park you have the wild basic and honestly very few people use wild basin and so if you want a different view less people maybe more wildlife I don’t know in a completely different vibe maybe you should enter the park through wild basin one day trail ridge road is considered Rocky Mountain National Park’s highway to the sky this road covers 48 miles between estes park on the east and grand lake on the west it’s the park’s most heavily traveled road with more than 11 miles above the tree line he or she or whoever is just right there I would say probably 30 yards away it’s absolutely unbelievable how vast this is you can see forever and these mountains are spectacular we keep climbing up and up and up on trail ridge road and I am almost to the tree line thank goodness I brought some extra clothes because the temperature is starting to drop so just here is rainbow curve it’s the first big stop that you’re supposed to make on trail ridge road you can see behind me the valley the horseshoe valley and the reason it’s called rainbow curve is because supposedly after a storm you will get big rainbows across this valley the ranger said to me that she’s never seen one but sometimes you even get a double rainbow dangerous snow fields ahead well they don’t look so dangerous to me mother nature is so spectacular so beautiful and it’s gotten a little bit windy do you see the lake the drive takes longer than expected so plan on at least half a day from your entrance into the park up to the top at the alpine visitor center well I made it to the alpine visitor center supposedly the highest national park visitor center in the country and it was well worth driving up here so I just went through the trail ridge store it is the only place in the national park to get food water you can get hot dogs and fruit snacks it’s also got a great gift shop as well so if by chance you did not bring food with you then this is the only place to stop I climbed at the top only takes about 15 minutes but you definitely don’t want to be doing this your first day in the mountains we’re over 11 000 feet here i’ve been up here four days and I’m still panting the nickname of this little stretch is called huffers hill if you’re not much of a hiker I definitely recommend that you go to the description below I have a link to my top 10 things that I put in my backpack for every hike that I do so the alpine visitor center seems to be packed all of the time with cars and there is just pass if you’re coming from estes park just past there is another parking lot but my suggestion is is just hang out in the main parking lot for about five minutes and somebody will definitely be leaving their parking spot and you can pull in and do the hike go shopping and grab a bite of food passing by the lava cliffs again on the way down look how windy it is see that guy’s shirt I absolutely love these alpine meadows and if you like hiking in the alpine make sure to check out my three videos on mont blanc three days when I hiked from switzerland to france and to italy [Applause] so i’ve been waiting in line for about 10 minutes now and it’s at the same spot where the moose was three hours ago he must still be there munching away and causing this traffic jam I made it make sure to get lots of pictures when you make it to Rocky Mountain National Park thought i’d share with you just a couple of statistics about Rocky Mountain National Park it was established in 1915 it has two over 265 000 acres of land there are over 800 miles of trails you could never run out of trails as far as the animals are concerned they have 66 native mammals they have over 140 different butterflies here they have seven native fish and they have 280 different birds okay I did have to write all that down because that’s too many statistics for me to remember at once but I think all those stats are super interesting when you’re trying to learn about a new area honestly I am so grateful one for mother nature for making this beautiful beautiful land it’s crazy how gorgeous this is I mean just stunning I also thank you so much for all the rangers who work all the time work hard to keep us safe and also to take pictures of us when we are traveling by ourselves thank you to everybody that has created all this deliciousness here in Rocky Mountain National Park it takes longer than you think to do anything in Rocky Mountain National Park and honestly you want to spend as much time inside the park as possible if you’re close to the entrances you can pop out to estes park go get some food or coffee something like that but honestly bring everything with you and spend the entire day Rocky Mountain National Park is open 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year now of course all of it is not open because of weather during the entire year but during the summer I mean all you need is a book or not and just this gorgeous gorgeous view it’s unbelievable just before the entrance to fall river road is the alluvial falls I decided to make a quick stop here to check them out so I’m up here at the falls and I just ran into cheryl one of the guides at green jeep tours i’ve seen them several times today honestly it would be fantastic to not only drive yourself but to take an actual tour green jeep tours go three times a day and it’s about 90 dollars a person be great to get the education experience they know all the spots where to go where to take the pictures and the history of Rocky Mountain National Park so I definitely recommend if you’re here for several days that you go on one of the green tube tours now I’m going to take the other route up to alpine visitor center this is called fall river road and is only open in the summer it is a cliff on that side actually it’s a cliff on this side and a complete drop off on that side and it is nine miles and it’s only I mean I don’t know how people pass each other on this but I decided to give it a try I’m gonna go uh take the road less traveled that’s for sure this road is 9.4 miles of gravel one way uphill and is dotted with tons of switchbacks the speed limit is 15 miles an hour and that’s a good thing because there aren’t any guardrails all I’m going to say is don’t look down yikes so I just heard thunder you never know when you’re in the mountains what to expect the weather can change in a second so when you’re up here in Rocky Mountain National Park you’re going to think that you need a t-shirt and shorts in the summer but I would recommend that you bring a rain jacket I would bring a jacket jacket as well also some long pants also with your hiking shoes bring some extra socks just in case you uh get your socks wet have I died and gone to heaven I mean look ugh just amazing all river road is only open in summer and it is about 10 miles long and it is well worth it just be careful of the weather changing the weather you don’t want to go up and when it’s pouring down rain because you might get a rock slide or something a new waterfall that you didn’t know was there but it is well worth taking this direction up to the alpine visitor center as well as doing trail ridge road there it is the alpine visitor center look he’s right there I am so close he is just on the side of the road just underneath the alpine visitor center oh my goodness oh lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky girl I am well I made it to the top of fall river road and back to the alpine visitor center this time I’m not going to make a stop since i’ve already been there since fall river road is one way up I have to take trail ridge road back down since i’ve already done that route I’m gonna make a quick trip with very few stops a perfect way to end a perfect day I am almost all the way down trail ridge road I am at the minI parks curve and I get to watch this spectacular sunset absolutely perfection I cannot even tell you this is just perfect and I’m the only one here oh my goodness perfection two rainbows and honestly one of them we can see the other side this is absolutely spectacular it’s beyond anything i’ve ever seen and I just talked to one of the guides and she said she’s never seen a double rainbow like this a perfect ending to a perfect day beautiful double rainbow right here comes the storm time to get down and time to get out of the park so thanks so much for watching I hope that you enjoyed this video again I’m Kim The Abundant Traveler and I will see you on some dirt road in summer national park see you later!