Top Ten National Parks: No. 7

Discovering the Beauty of America's National (and other) Parks

From this point onward …

It is extremely difficult to rank these parks!

The reason for that is this — They’re all just SO good! It’s impossible not to LOVE the rest of the National Parks on our list. In some ways, they all could be number 1!

Nevertheless, we have set out to give a top ten ranking, and a top ten ranking is what we will do!

Last time …

We enjoyed giving our recap of our experience at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado. Make sure you click the link to go back and check that one out if you haven’t yet! We shared a pretty interesting story about getting lost thanks to our improper use of GPS!

But for now, let’s get to our number 7 National Park …

(For Park Name and pictures, keeping scrolling!)

Scenery:

Snow-capped peaks, including the 14’er (over 14,000 feet tall) known as Longs Peak, raging rapids, peaceful valleys, and beautiful alpine lakes make this National Park truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen!

Located in Estes Park, Colorado, Rocky Mountain National Park comes in with an almost perfect score of 4.5 stars for scenery! Just look at these views!

Variety:

All the traditional National Park favorites like hiking, camping, stargazing, and wildlife viewing, etc. can be found in this park. You can also take the hour-or-so-long trip down to Boulder, or to nearby Denver, for just about anything else you can think of to add excitement to your trip. If you don’t want to travel quite that far away from the Park, the town of Estes Park is an absolutely charming place to be as well! 4.0 stars.

Wildlife:

If you want to see elk, here’s your chance! Elk are abundant both in the National Park, as well as in the town of Estes Park. We even saw the elusive MOOSE for the first time on our trip to Rocky Mountain NP! You’re also in cougar and black bear country, although we didn’t see either. (There was rumored to be a black bear rummaging through the trash at our motel though)! 4.5 stars.

(Here are some pictures of some of the elk we saw. We didn’t get a picture of the moose [just some video camera footage], so you’ll have to take our word for it! Maybe I’ll try to find that footage and add it in here later!)

Camping/Lodging:

Estes Park has everything you need if you decide to go the hotel route, including the famous …

… Stanley Hotel!

You can stay here if you wish, but it’s not for the faint of heart! Spooky, spooky if you ask me! You can also visit it just to take a look at it (like we did), and you can pay to take a tour that gives even more of a look of this grand hotel. (This place is pretty pricey, so it was too high for our budget, but I’m sure it would still be neat to stay here if you can).

(View from the small bridge leading into the motel that we stayed at for a few nights. Check out The Inn on Fall River for more info!)

For Camping/Lodging opportunities, Rocky Mountain National Park scores an almost perfect 4.5 stars.

Other Amenities/Recreation Opportunities:

Again, hop on down to Boulder for some cool museums and a neat restaurant scene, or check out Denver for a Colorado Rockies or Avalanche game, or check out the Denver Nuggets or the Denver Broncos. There should be opportunities galore for fishing, hunting, hiking, rock climbing, and rafting/kayaking/canoeing for you outdoors enthusiasts like us!

Also, check out the Mustang Mountain Coaster in Estes Park and tell them we sent you! They were nice enough to give us free tickets after we met the owners at Estes Park Church of Christ!

Rocky Mountain NP easily gets 4.5 stars in this category.

Busyness:

Okay, as beautiful and awesome as this National Park is, there had to be something that didn’t get at least a 4-star rating, and that’s busyness, because this park is quite popular! 3.0 stars.

Accessibility:

Where this park disappoints on crowds, it easily makes up for it on accessibility because it is so close to Denver, Colorado!

Here’s how far this park is from several major cities:

• Denver, CO - 1.45 hours Southwest (closest)

• Salk Lake City, UT - 7.5 hours West

• Wichita, KS - 8 hours East

• Albuquerque, NM - 7.5 hours South

For accessibility, Rocky Mountain gets 4.5 stars!

Personal Experience:

We absolutely LOVED this National Park. It was one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen (with really only a couple of places we have visited so far even coming close). The hiking was superb. The alpine lakes surrounded by snow-capped mountains were gorgeous. The scenic drives were pretty amazing, too. Personal experience score = 7.5 (so 2.5 bonus points!)

Overall Rating:

If we are ever back in the Denver area, we will absolutely be visiting this National Park again. We visited this park for just a few days while visiting all the National Parks in Colorado (and a couple in Utah), but you could easily make a full vacation spending a whole week at this one park. It’s that good! Rocky Mountain National Park comes in with a final average score of 4.63 stars! Nice job Rocky Mountain National Park!

Rocky Mountain National Park — No. 7 on our top 10 ranking!

We hope that you will come back later as we reveal our no. 6 favorite National Park!

Until next time,

Keep exploring, friends!

— Chase