Rocky Mountain National Park

I live in Boulder and get the parks pass every year.

They are hard-asses about off-trail camping at RMNP. The upside is that there is tons and tons of National Forest and BLM land all around RMNP that doing dispersed camping not far outside the park is totally viable. Especially if you mostly hang out near Grand Lake or go a little ways South of Estes on the Peak-to-Peak Highway. Fuck it, you should just drive the Peak-to-Peak all the way to Nederland (be sure to visit the carousel) and then go down into Boulder and/or make the drive back to Lyons.

In May, the lower areas of the park will be chilly at night, but otherwise very nice. Trail Ridge is often closed until first or second week of June because there will be still 6 feet of snow, but you can ask about that at the gate when you get there.

The East side of the park is definitely the busiest. West is not as busy, especially if Trail Ridge is still closed and you have to drive all the way around to the Grand Lake entrance. Ouzel Falls is a hidden gem of the park and you can't get there from the main park areas. You have to get there via poorly-marked turn-offs for the Indian Peaks wilderness along the Peak-to-Peak. When leaving Estes on 7, if you get to the three-way intersection where 7 goes down to Lyons and 72 continues on to Nederland, then you missed the turn-off about a mile previously.

>>956146
Its a no fire, no leave the trail park.

And they are assholes

>>956158
Would you recommend the Arapaho National Forest then? Ever been there? Ideally we're looking for a place that we can hike in, camp (with an open fire), fish, explore, etc.

>>956158
>mfw I lived in Allens Park and Estes Park for over a year and never went to RMNP
>too busy climbing The Owls freehand
>too busy doing acid

It's nice. Take Bunce School Road till you can't any more. and park. Hike, camp, keep going. You won't miss RMNP if you drive thru it.

Stanley Mansion is worth seeing.

>>956232
No offense but you sound literally worthless

>>956146
RMNP is a pain for overnight camping. Enjoy your pay permits and designated camping spots.

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>>956146
I actually just came from there over Christmas. Backpacked up to Flattop Mountain. It's sad that it took us 4 days to do go up and back considering it's only like 12 miles, but that snow gets crazy deep and snow shoes are slow moving. Great experience though. Never camped in a blizzard before.

The west side of the park was extremely beautiful, but they don't open up Trail Ridge until like June. We saw some beautiful stuff on the northern end of the park, but didn't get a chance to hike/camp any of it

May should be OK for camping with a fire. I would still bring a camp stove because you'll be pissed if there's a ban.

>>956174
Arapaho and Roosevelt are both great. They're basically the same forest on different sides of the park.

Rainbow Lakes has a nice campground, is still pretty high elevation, and has good camping, hiking and fishing.

The Red Feather area is pretty great as well.