Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Rocky Mountain National Park straddles the Continental Divide in north-central Colorado. The western side of that dividing line gets about twice the annual precipitation (and humidity) as the eastern side. However, the 5 drive-in campgrounds, more than 200 back-country campsites and the 359 miles of trails are pretty evenly dispersed across this high country paradise. Elevations vary from about 8,000' in the low valleys to 14,259' at the top of Long's Peak.

This was Ute country until the early 1800's. They never lived here year-round but this was prime fishing and hunting country for them. Gold miners first arrived in the 1850's and a few ephemeral settlements were thrown up and then abandoned when the ore body quickly gave out. Homsteading really got started here in the 1860's but this was never good grazing or farming country. On the other hand, the water that flowed here was more valuable than gold and there were many early ventures involved with diverting that water to growing Front Range towns even back then.

The park came into existence in January, 1915. The countryside was dotted with private property and many privtae owners ran small lodging and vacation establishments. Roads were primitive, and few and far between. There was never a railroad built to service anything in the park so real transportation construction didn't happen until the days of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The National Park Service used those young men to build Trail Ridge Road, the first professionally designed auto route in Rocky Mountain National Park. The 1960's saw the construction of visitor centers at Alpine, Kawuneeche and Beaver Meadows.

Today, Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the crown jewels of the National Park system. Of the 5 campgrounds, 2 require reservations while the other 3 are first-come, first-served. The 200+ back-country campsites all require a permit for use. Trail Ridge Road is only open from the end of May to mid-October. And if you want to climb Long's Peak, you want to start out really early: each route to the top has its' own bottleneck and those bottlenecks plug up quickly on a beautiful summer day.