Everything to know about Rocky Mountain National Park

The pandemic has disrupted travel to national parks and wilderness areas. To find out which parks are open and how to visit them safely, scan the National Park Service’s coronavirus resource page. You can also search for parks by state. Planning a visit to a nearby park? Practice safe social distancing, pack your own food and necessities, and don’t forget the bug spray.

In the shadow of Rocky Mountain National Park’s soaring peaks are wild rivers, placid alpine lakes, and an amazing array of flora and fauna. And you don’t even have to hike to see them, if you don’t want to.

Trail Ridge Road, which follows a path that Native Americans used for thousands of years, meanders through forests, above the tree line, and over the Continental Divide; it's the longest continuous paved road in the United States and an efficient way to explore the park's topographical range. But while driving may offer magnificent scale, nothing captures detail like a hike. So here are a few of the park's star attractions that are accessible either by car or by foot.

Don’t miss

Walking a section of the Continental Divide Trail offers a taste of the 3,100-mile trail that wanders through Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and New Mexico. Twenty-eight miles of the trail falls in Rocky Mountain, and there are shorter, family-friendly options that are easier to access.

Lulu City is a ghost town that in late 1880 was home to a population of 500 and 10 working mines. The...