When planning this trip, we timed our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park to ensure that Trail Ridge Road would be fully open. Two weeks before we left Memphis, the road was closed following a late May snow storm. By the time we arrived in Estes Park, Trail Ridge Road, and the national park, were fully open and ready for summer.
Months earlier we began the countdown to May 1, the date on which timed entry reservations for the park were released for sale on recreation.gov. Timed entry reservations are required during the summer months (May 22, 2026 to October 18, 2026). The cost is $2 per reservation. You are allowed to purchase one reservation per day. Assuming you are driving into the park, each vehicle needs a reservation, not each person. FN1
If you are planning a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, check recreation.gov for the release schedule of timed entry reservations. Generally reservations go on sale on the first of each month for the following month.
Two different timed entry reservations are available. For the Park generally, a reservation is required from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. If you don’t have one, plan on arriving well before 9:00 AM or after 2:00 PM. Out of an abundance of caution, allow for at least 30 minutes, if not longer, to get through the entrance station in the morning.
You’d be surprised how many people do not realize that a timed entry reservation is required to enter the park during these hours. Each day we saw multiple vehicles turned away at the entrance station for not having a reservation.
The second reservation is for the Park + Bear Lake Road. The Bear Lake Road corridor of the park is the most popular area, sees the most visitors, and has the most hiking trails. To drive down Bear Lake Road, a timed entry reservation is required from 5:00 AM to 6:00 PM. If you want to drive Bear Lake Road without a reservation, plan for a very early morning. There is a separate entrance station at the beginning of Bear Lake Road checking for Bear Lake Road reservations specifically.
Timed entry reservations are sold in two hour time slots. If you miss your two hour window, you can enter the Park, or Bear Lake Road (if you have a Park + Bear Lake Road reservation for that day), only after 2:00 PM.
On May 1, I was on my computer ready to purchase our timed entry reservations just before 8:00 AM MDT. Working relatively quickly, I secured a timed entry reservation for each of the five days we will be in the park, at our preferred morning times.
We planned on hiking in the Bear Lake Road corridor two or three days during our visit. Not knowing exactly which hikes on which day, as it will be based on the weather and how our bodies feel, we went ahead and got Park + Bear Lake Road reservations for each day. This gives us the flexibility to go to Bear Lake Road on any day we want during our visit.
Most of the morning time slots in May and June for the Park + Bear Lake Road reservations (from 6:00 AM to 12:00 PM) were sold within an hour of being released. Some time slots (notably 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM), particularly on the weekends, were sold out in as little as 15 minutes.
Having an account at recreation.gov already set up, with credit card information on file, makes the process much easier. This is basically the national park equivalent of buying Taylor Swift concert tickets online.
If you don’t secure timed entry reservations in advance, you have a second chance. Each night at 7:00 PM MDT, a limited number of timed entry reservations for the following day are released for sale. Miss those, and you are in for a very early morning start if you want to spend the day in the park.
Keep in mind that having a timed entry reservation does not guarantee parking, particularly in the Bear Lake Road corridor. The parking lots at Bear Lake and Sprague Lake fill up quickly. If you cannot find parking, and don’t want to drive in a holding pattern waiting to get lucky, then consider riding one of the shuttle busses that operate throughout the Bear Lake Road corridor from the Park & Ride station.
Luckily we were always able to find a parking space in the Bear Lake Road corridor, but only just. Several times we arrived just in time to get one of the last two or three parking spots.
On our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park, we had a reservation for the 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM time slot. We arrived at the park a little before 9:00 AM. All three entrance stations were open, and it only took us about 10 minutes to get into the park. A minute or so later we drove through the second check point entering Bear Lake Road.
Already a sign was prominently posted indicating that the parking lot at Bear Lake was full. This is a friendly reminder from the park that if you drive to Bear Lake and cannot get a parking spot, you may be forced to drive back to Park & Ride to hop on a shuttle, effectively wasting about 45 minutes of your morning.
Stephanie and I headed to Sprague Lake instead. Plenty of parking spaces were available (mid-week in early June). We strolled the 0.75 mile around Sprague Lake on a flat gravel trail with a few boardwalks. It was a nice easy walk and introduction to the park.
Afterwards we decided to drive to Bear Lake on the off chance that we would find a parking spot. Luckily we did. Although signs indicated that the lot was full, several spots were open from cars that recently left.
We went ahead and walked the 0.6 mile loop around Bear Lake. There were a lot of people on the trail, a lot more than at Sprague Lake. It was another nice and easy walk on a mostly flat gravel and dirt trail.
Then Stephanie volunteered to hike 1.0 mile roundtrip to Nymph Lake (with 240 feet in elevation). Unlike walking around Sprague Lake and Bear Lake, the trail to Nymph Lake is all uphill. Not too steep, but uphill nevertheless. At nearly 10,000 feet in altitude, we were starting to feel the effects of the thinner air.
The trail to Nymph Lake was quite crowded. Like the loop around Bear Lake, it’s an easy walk and popular with families. Most of the trial is paved or packed gravel, making it easy to do in tennis shoes.
The Bear Lake trailhead is probably the single most crowded area of the park – it has the largest parking lot, multiple rest rooms, a ranger station, and shuttle bus stop – and not somewhere we wanted to spend extra time. So after returning from Nymph Lake we drove back to the picnic tables at Sprague Lake for lunch.
Our afternoon started with a quick drive through Moraine Park on our way out of the Bear Lake corridor. We then drove out Trail Ridge Road to see some of the sights, stopping at Many Parks Overlook (pretty nice), Rainbow Curve Overlook (not all that interesting), and Forest Canyon Overlook (the best of the three).
Wind was a constant presence throughout our first day, from gentle breezes to powerful gusts. It was only a problem at two places. First, the trail to Nymph Lake. The trail is covered in thin layer of dirt which is easily whipped up into small localized dust storms. Second, at Forest Canyon Overlook. Not because of dirt, but because the short paved trail is on a fully exposed ridge line at a high elevation. Not only was the wind blowing fiercely, but the temperature was over 20° F cooler than in Estes Park.
On the return drive to Estes Park we came across a field with a couple of grazing elk. They were kind enough to be in an area where you could pull off the side of the road to park. It was a nice way to end our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Miles Hiked:
Sprague Lake: 0.75 mile loop
Bear Lake: 0.60 mile loop
Nymph Lake: 1.0 mile out and back
Total: 2.35 miles
Garrett and Stephanie
FN1. If you plan on taking the hiker shuttle from Estes Park to the Bear Lake Road Park & Ride station, instead of driving into the park, then each person needs a reserved hiker shuttle ticket, which is also purchased at recreation.gov for $2 per reservation.
If you have not already done so, read our other posts about Rocky Mountain National Park:
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (June, 2026, Part II). Hiking the Four Lake Loop Trail, with a side trip to Mills Lake.
To read other posts about our adventures in the National Parks and National Monuments, or elsewhere in the world, check out our Travel Blog. It contains collected links to all of our travel posts.
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