Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado Rocky Mountain National park is located about 35 miles due west of Loveland through the Big Thompson Canyon on highway 34. The village of Estes park sits on the eastern boundary and entrance while Grand Lake sits on the boundary of the west side. The park is open year around. Rocky Mountain National Park is home to Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest continuous highway in the US. The highway is open Memorial Day to Labor Day if the weather allows. In the summer the bulk of the visitors come to see and drive trail ridge road. Trail Ridge Road is actually the newest of the roads over the mountain. There is also the original road now called Fall River Road. This road was the original built when the model T was the transportation of preference.

Fall River Road opens around July 1st and closes at the first major snow fall. The reason for this is simple this road is all dirt and a narrow one lane road that only runs one way, up.

Rocky Mountain National Park's main entrance is the east side because of the close proximity of Denver, just an hour to the east. There are two entrances to the park just outside of Estes park. They are separated by a large ridge of mountains which starts in west Estes Park. During the summer there are many days with lines of cars waiting to get into each entrance. Both entrances have visitors centers. The north entrance has the newest facilities and has a nice gift shop and restaurant which the northern entrance does not. Both entrances have RV Parks and campgrounds outside the parks entrances.

I have been in most every National Park in our country and Rocky Mountain is still one of my favorites. The park is host to over 3 million visitors a year and most of them do not get get out of there cars. The park did a study a long while back which showed that less than 10% get more than one half mile off the road. This fact makes it rather easy to be almost alone in thousands and thousands of acres of mountain wilderness.

The park contains a large population of animals. Deer, elk, moose, coyote, bear, cougar and big horn sheep are the big ones with marmots, ground squirrels, raccoons, skunks and assorted others making up the rest. Of these the moose and elk are the most sought after by picture takers. Elk and deer are not to tough to see and the big horn sheep are available during the right time of year. The rest on the other hand are not easy to find. Rocky Mountain has bears but they are few and far between. There are many in the area but most are at lower altitudes. Cougars, the big cats are rarely seen on the east side and hang out at higher altitudes where few people go.

Each year coyotes are easier to see everywhere and in early 2008 wolves, or a wolf has been seen in the park near Moraine Valley. Also, tracks have been seen. Moose are fairly easy to see in the Kawuneeche Valley which is on the west side of the divide. In 2008 we saw a moose on the east side for the first time and have since talked to others who have also seen one on the east side. This of course means that the moose is migrating over the mountain from the west. The west side was where the first ones were released years ago.

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