Trail Ridge road colorado review
- Abby Hawaii
- Jun 2, 2023
- 3 min read
If you're visiting Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado, you have to add Trail Ridge Road in Estes Park to you bucket list! This is my honest review and the journey going up Trail Ridge Road in Colorado. Soaring to an elevation of 12,183, Trail Ridge Road passes through Rocky Mountain National Park between the towns of Estes Park and Grand Lake and is one of the best ways to see the Continental Divide as it cuts through Colorado. Rocky Mountain National Park has a reservation system in place May–Oct. Reservations for visitors are required. If you go either before 9am or after 3pm, you don't have to have a reservation.
We went after 3:00pm, around 4:00pm and entered into the Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado through the Bear Lake entrance. We drove past the first several stops, and went to this one that's featured here. It's a beautiful view overlooking the Rocky Mountains. There's tons of stops along the way of this road, choose some that you'd like to stop at. Everyone goes about 25-30mph along this road.
As we kept climbing up the mountain, we started to see snow on the mountains! Be careful and pay attention to the road here, it's very steep!
The higher we climbed, the less trees there were. Until there were none! There was lots of snow, and this was at the end of May! Trail Ridge Road just opened over Memorial Day weekend, so we were one of the first to enter!
We came to our next stop, which was an area with a parking lot and lots and lots of snow!! This stop was called Forest Canyon overlook. As you can see, there are no more trees. It was freezing cold up there! We took our cameras out, and explored this beautiful area!
This area was my favorite to take photos! You must stop here if you want to get out, explore, and take photos of Trail Ridge Road. Here are some of my favorites with me and my dad!:)
Then we noticed that a storm was coming! This is pretty normal in Colorado to have afternoon and evening thunderstorms roll in quickly. You have to be careful. In this case, it brought snow! You can see it here coming in quick!
As I was taking photos, my foot slipped into a 2ft. hole in the ground and tweaked my knee. Be careful in this area because there were tons of random deep holes in the snow just off the path. We headed back to the car to beat the snow coming in! Back up the mountain we drove on our way!
The storm coming in was actually breathtakingly beautiful! Here are some of the photos we got as we continued to climb in elevation.
We took our dog, Bauer, who's a Sheepadoodle. He got a little car sick, so my mom held him as he was feeling pretty tired.
I've been on this road before, and sometimes there are Elk that like to hang out in this area here!
We made it to the top at elevation 12, 183 ft elevation! There is a small parking lot with restrooms, and a few other buildings. We were feeling a little light headed, so be sure to bring lots of water and snacks for the drive. We also purchased some Oxygen to breathe and that helps alleviate any headaches we might have gotten being at that high of altitude.
We turned around here and drove down the mountain. That's when the storm hit!
We realized it was not snow, but hail! You can see hail is blowing all over the road. Be careful for this part and watch your brakes going down the mountain. This took us about 2 hours for the entire trip! When we reached the bottom of the mountain, we saw something absolutely incredible!
At the base of Trail Ridge Road, we saw several Elk! They are so beautiful. You can stop alongside the road and take photos of the Elk.
All in all, this is a MUST do bucket list if you're traveling to Rocky Mountain National Park this summer or fall. It's closed in the winter time and opens around Memorial Day weekend. Don't miss this awesome adventure in Colorado! :)
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