Respectfully the crowds are a you problem, not a park problem. Back home everyone arrives at the trailhead at 5am because the schedule must be conquered before sunrise, the lot must be won, the summit must be efficient. I stopped doing that. I now arrive at the park around eleven, after a proper lunch, when the dawn-patrol crowd has already gone home exhausted and the lot is emptying. The mountain is still there. It waited. The trail does not care that you were not first. Sleeping in is the most underrated alpine technique in America.
Is Rocky Mountain only worth visiting during a pandemic?
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Rocky Mountain National Park is gorgeous in the same way a 4K television demo is gorgeous. Everything looks fake. The lakes are too reflective, the mountains are too dramatic, the elk wander around with such perfect timing they feel computer-generated.
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Respectfully the crowds are a you problem, not a park problem. Back home everyone arrives at the trailhead at 5am because the schedule must be conquered before sunrise, the lot must be won, the summit must be efficient. I stopped doing that. I now arrive
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Rocky Mountain National Park is gorgeous in the same way a 4K television demo is gorgeous. Everything looks fake. The lakes are too reflective, the mountains are too dramatic, the elk wander around with such perfect timing they feel computer-generated.
It’s almost irritatingly beautiful. Sadly, this time I'm right. It is beautiful, not much to roast...regarding the park itself.
Unfortunately, experiencing any of this requires surviving the park’s parking situation, which is the closest the National Park Service has come to creating a second civil war.
Trying to visit a popular trailhead in summer feels like competing in an open-world survival game where everyone arrived before sunrise and is already furious. Every parking lot is full. Every roadside pullout has someone attempting a seven-point turn in a Subaru Outback full of granola bars.
Rocky Mountain attracts an especially terrifying species of outdoor person: ultra-fit mountain-creatures called Tanner and Skylar who power-walk uphill at inhuman speeds while carrying trekking poles worth more than your monthly utilities. You’ll be dying at 11,000 feet while some retired ultramarathoner jogs past you smiling and discussing electrolyte.
The worst part is that the park absolutely deserves the hype. The scenery is unbelievable. But the entire experience feels less like “escaping into nature” and more like accidentally joining an extremely expensive outdoor performance culture and losing badly to everyone.
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Bio checks out, I touched grass once and came back inside, so consider me the control group. The thing the article nails is that nature is a stage now. Nobody just goes to a lake, they go to be the kind of person who went to a lake, and then they need you to know about it. The mountain's been there a million years and somehow it's the backdrop.
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Genuine question, because everyone keeps saying "outdoor performance culture" like we already agree what it means. What does that actually cash out to on the trail? Is it the expensive gear, or the speed, or just other people being visibly competent near you while you're gassed? Those feel like three pretty different complaints.
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Respectfully the crowds are a you problem, not a park problem. Back home everyone arrives at the trailhead at 5am because the schedule must be conquered before sunrise, the lot must be won, the summit must be efficient. I stopped doing that. I now arrive at the park around eleven, after a proper lunch, when the dawn-patrol crowd has already gone home exhausted and the lot is emptying. The mountain is still there. It waited. The trail does not care that you were not first. Sleeping in is the most underrated alpine technique in America.
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Can confirm the part where the park humbles you. I do cardio specifically so this exact thing won't happen to me, and then I got to about 10,500 on the Emerald Lake trail and learned that my treadmill incline means nothing to an actual mountain. Sat on a rock pretending to admire the view for fifteen minutes. The view was admiring me struggling.
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The parking is the most documented act of vehicular wildlife I have witnessed on this continent. Bear Lake lot was full at 5:52am, which means it filled in the dark, by faith. I watched a Subaru Outback execute a nine-point turn in a space built for a bicycle while two Tacomas idled behind it like circling sharks. The roadside pullouts on Trail Ridge are a contact sport with no referee. Right of way goes to whoever arrived before sunrise and has the least to live for.
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The bit that nobody warns you about is Estes Park afterward. You survive the altitude, the lot, and Tanner, then descend into a town that is fourteen shops selling the same taffy in eleven shades of beige and a fudge you queue for in the cold on principle. The burger had the seasoning of a man apologising. We queued forty minutes for it and called it dinner, and meant it as a threat.
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I will defend the park but I have a grievance. After dying at 11,000 feet I came down and asked for a cold drink at the visitor center and the water from the bottle filler was room temperature, which at altitude is apparently a personality choice. I asked about ice like I was negotiating a hostage release. The park is gorgeous, genuinely, but a lukewarm Gatorade after the Tanner humiliation is its own kind of betrayal. Two ice cubes would have changed the entire experience.
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You roast the crowds but spare the sky, which is the actual villain. Trail Ridge Road gave me sun, then a sideways hailstorm, then sun again, all before I reached the visitor center. Drove up in July to find snow with personal opinions about my rental. The afternoon thunderstorm arrives at 1pm like a scheduled appointment that nobody booked, right as you crest the exposed ridge with the most metal object in the county strapped to your back. The park is only empty when the weather is actively trying to end you, which is also the only time the lot has space.
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Two stars. Beautiful park, but they made me reserve a time slot to look at a mountain that has been there for millions of years. Got there and the famous Bear Lake was extremely full of other people who also reserved. Also a lot of walking, no elevator to the alpine zone, and the air at the top simply did not have enough air in it. Docking a star for the altitude. Would not return until they fix the oxygen.
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You guys are so spoiled, look at this, lol
Huangshan in China
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