~15 miles of hiking, ~100 miles of driving and 10 hours of lakes, waterfalls, glaciers, marmots, elk, pika, mountains and stunning views – our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park included everything I could hope to squeeze in the one day we had.
What we covered:
Bear Lake Corridor –
- Trail to Sky Pond (9.5 miles) –
- Alberta Falls
- The Loch
- Lake of Glass
- Sky Pond
- Trail to Emerald Lake (3.5 miles) –
- Bear Lake (loop adds an extra 0.5 miles)
- Nymph Lake
- Dream Lake
- Emerald Lake
- Sprague Lake (0.1 miles just to see the lake, 0.9 miles for the loop)
Main Park –
- Alpine Ridge Trail (0.7 miles)
- Trail Ridge Road (50 mile drive from Grand Lake entrance)
- Forest Canyon Overlook (0.3 miles)
- Many Peaks Curve Overlook
Reserving our spot
As of June 2021, it is not possible to enter the Bear Lake Corridor (where a big chunk of the best hikes in the park are) between 5am to 6pm without a timed entry reservation. Unfortunately, we did not make reservations in the beginning of the season because our plans were not concrete. At 4:59 pm on a Friday, we continuously refreshed the reservation page. There were 99 slots left to enter between 7-9am the next day that were going to be released at 5pm. Our first, second, third attempts to add a ticket to our cart failed. Fourth time was the charm at 5:01pm. When we went back to the main page at 5:03pm, all ~600 slots for across all time windows were booked!
Camping the night before
Again, due to not making reservations in advance, the closest campground to the park we were able to reserve was Green Ridge Campground. The campground is only a couple miles from the main entrance of the park but it’s a 1 hour 45 minute drive to Bear Lake Corridor. Even though it’s almost 2 hours, the drive covers only around 50 miles – the reason it takes so long is because of the low speed limits. We didn’t mind the long drive because we went through Trail Ridge Road and passed through some incredible scenery.
If you stay on the Estes Park side and do Trail Ridge Road, you would still need to do that drive but just the other way around. The one advantage to staying on the Estes Park side is that you’re only 15-20 minutes from the Bear Lake Corridor so you wouldn’t need to wake up early to drive that extra time. However, the downside is if you do Trail Ridge Road, the total drive time would be around 3 hours at once. (Unless you’re staying for more than a day and in a different campground each night – then you could start at one of them and drive to the next one through Trail Ridge Road in the evening).
We really liked Green Ridge Campground – we got a private site that we car camped in. The campground is 5 minutes from downtown Grand Lake where there are a lot of shops and restaurants to explore. There’s also a nice beach with kayaking and other water sports on the shore of Grand Lake that we could’ve enjoyed if we arrived earlier.
Bear Lake Corridor
Trail to Sky Pond (9.5 miles)
Parking –
Our first hike was Sky Pond via Glacier Gorge. As we expected, the Glacier Gorge parking lot was full by the time we reached. We ended up going back to the Park and Ride parking lot, parked there, and then took the shuttle to the trailhead. Instead of doing what we did (costed us an extra 20 minutes), I would recommend doing one of these two options unless you get to Glacier Gorge parking lot before 5/5:30 am –
- Park at Park and Ride and take the shuttle to Glacier Gorge
- Park at Bear Lake Trailhead where there’s almost 4 times the parking at Glacier Gorge and start the hike at Bear Lake (joins Sky Pond Trail in about 0.5 miles)
The Hike –
Once we started the hike to Sky Pond, we realized why it’s one of the best hikes in the park. Only less than a mile in, we stopped at Alberta Falls, a gorgeous waterfall with mountains in its backdrop.
Our next stop was the Loch – the first of several lakes to come.
After this, we climbed a long way to the second lake – The Lake of Glass. This climb passed through incredible scenery including thousands of wildflowers at the base of the mountains, evergreens covering the snow and gorgeous overlooks of the valley.
Just before reaching the Lake of Glass, we climbed a steep waterfall. This waterfall is the only way up and we had to maneuver some huge, slippery boulders to get through it. I would not recommend this if you’re afraid of heights – or would at least not look down while climbing. You’ll also get wet here so be sure to carry waterproof gear.
The Lake of Glass is stunning and worth the waterfall climb. There are snow covered mountains behind the lake and we saw some cute marmots enjoying the views. We mistakenly thought the Lake of Glass was Sky Pond and almost stopped until we saw there was still a bit of the path left on AllTrails.
The final climb to Sky Pond was steeper than the rest of the hike. In my opinion, Sky Pond was even more beautiful than the Lake of Glass. The looming mountainous structures behind the lake took me back to Patagonia and reminded me of Torres Del Paine.
Sprague Lake
On the way down from Sky Pond, it started pouring. We were completely wet, tired and too exhausted to start another hike. Emerald Lake was supposed to be next but we saw how Bear Lake looked with the clouds and didn’t think it was worth doing the whole hike to find clouds obscuring everything.
We decided to take a small break and went back to our car from the Park and Ride. We drove to Sprague Lake (10 minutes from Glacier Gorge) and relaxed there for a bit. (I was still freezing and wet from the hike so not for too long). The views here were more calming than WOW (like Sky Pond) and we enjoyed our break here. This lake is also a great spot to take a lunch break if you’re carrying food as they have picnic tables.
Emerald Lake Trail (3.5 miles)
We were about to leave Bear Lake Corridor after Sprague Lake when we noticed the clouds clearing away in the distance We felt energized after the break and decided to drive back to the Bear Lake Trailhead.
Of course, the clouds rolled back in once we started hiking. We got to Nymph lake before it started pouring again.
The climb from Nymph to Dream was relatively easy so we didn’t struggle through the rain. Dream lake looked more like Drear Lake with grey clouds surrounding it. We still saw the lake reflected in the water though!
Luckily, by the time we got to Emerald, the clouds cleared away again! Emerald lake was absolutely stunning and worth trudging through the rain.
On the way down, the rain clouds cleared away almost completely and we got to see a beautiful reflection of Dream Lake. This was the perfect end to our adventure in Bear Lake Corridor and we were ready to explore the main park. It was only 4pm when we finished, so we still had a a few hours to do so.
Main Park –
- Alpine Ridge Trail (0.7 miles)
- Trail Ridge Road (50 mile drive from Grand Lake entrance)
- Forest Canyon Overlook (0.3 miles)
- Many Parks Curve Overlook
We spent most of our time in the main park driving through Trail Ridge Road. The clouds from Bear Lake Corridor followed us to the main park. The dreary effect they created on the lakes transformed into a magical one over the many peaks of Trail Ridge Road. Particularly noteworthy viewpoints were the Forest Canyon Overlook and the Many Peaks Curve Overlook.
Our final stop in the park was the Alpine Ridge Trail. A 0.7 mile round trip sounded like a walk in the park but after nearly 15 miles of hiking, the stairs to the top of the trail felt infinite. On the way up we just focused on finishing but while coming down we got to admire the views of the surrounding peaks.
Unfortunately that didn’t last very long because the clouds decided to create a massive hailstorm when we were about 10 minutes from the end. Hailstones smacked us in the face as we ran down the stairs. Our adventure in the park ended with aching faces, freezing hands, a ton of adrenaline and our hearts totally content.