Rocky Mountain National Park is absolutely known for their epic mountain views, I mean, it’s in the name after all. But, the thing I’ve deeply fallen in love with are the lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park. Over our trips there, we’ve made our way to twelve amazing alpine and subalpine lakes within Rocky Mountain National Park! These visits range from easy loops less than one mile to 10.5 mile strenuous treks. I’ve “ranked” these by ease from easiest to most difficult to visit. Each one is unique and I have or would go back and visit each of these lakes. I’ll give little tips of if a spot is great for sunrise or sunset, and other tips!
So, come along with me on an adventure to the lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado!
First Off, Here Are A Few Things to Know for a Visit to Rocky Mountain National Park
Rocky Mountain National Park Requires Timed Entry Most of the Year: from late May to mid October, timed entry is required to enter the park. Unlike other parks, though, there are two different timed entries within the park.
– Standard Timed Entry – Standard timed entry gets you access to any part of the park except Bear Lake Road. There is a lot to see all around the park. This entry is required daily from 9am to 2pm.
– Standard + Bear Lake Timed Entry – Bear Lake Road does hold a lot of the most scenic hikes, including all but Lily Lake in this post. It’s required from 5am to 6pm.
Timed entry is released on May 1st each year, but a decent amount of timed entries open up at the 7pm (MST) the day before that you can snag a timed entry the night before if you jump on pretty quickly. Timed entry is $2 per day.
Show Wildlife Respect: Keep your distance, don’t feed wildlife and certainly do not approach. For the love of all that is holy, if any animal has a baby, give them extra space. Some of the most dangerous animals in the park are actually elk and moose. Don’t think you’re only looking out for bears.
Don’t Be Afraid to Take the Park and Ride on Bear Lake Road: Obviously, it’s most convenient to just hop into your own vehicle at the trailhead, but the shuttles are super reliable and pretty comfortable too. All the parking areas fill up relatively quickly, especially in the mornings.
Dogs Are Not Allowed on Trails in Rocky Mountain National Park: Most national parks don’t allow pets. So, be sure to leave your furry friends at home or at the your local accommodation, but don’t leave them in your car, for their safety!
Looking for more need-to-know tips on Rocky Mountain National Park? Check out this post on everything you need before visiting Rocky Mountain National Park!
Gear I Use in Rocky Mountain National Park
Things We Use for Safety – I have a Garmin InReach Mini 2 that helps me feel so safe and secure in the wilderness. I think it’s especially important for any solo adventures. Just know that you do have to pay for a subscription for this. We do it monthly so that it is less expensive, and you’re not obligated to sign up for a certain amount of months. A first aid kit is especially important for tackling remote, backcountry hiking. I always like to have a basic first aid kit, but even on something small I like to bring basics like bandaids – I think these cloth ones stay on the best, Neosporin, and alcohol wipes. I also like to keep some moleskin in my pack in case I get a blister.
My Latest Gear Obsession – My Garmin Instinct 3 watch. I’m not a “techy” girl, but I’m obsessed with my Garmin watch. I love stats, I love tracking my health and activity and nothing beats this. This watch feels like it’s activity and adventure first, and smartwatch second, which is exactly what I need and want. The battery life is up to 18 days, it tracks so much in real-time including weather, altitude and more. Plus it’s built to be more resilient and I can wear it in water without even thinking about it.
Footwear – Matt and I both love our Merrell hiking boots. In fact just this year, I found my all-time-favorite hiking boots – they’re still mids, they’re lightweight and waterproof. Regardless of which brand works best or fits your foot, though, we both recommend a boot with ankle support. A lot of people recommend trail runners, but for me, nothing beats a hiking boot. These Merrell socks are perfect for my hiking adventures. I love that they’re cushioned slightly and are the perfect height for ankle boots. If I don’t wear boots and am just doing a shorter hike, just a stroll around the paved areas of a park, or a water activity, I’d wear my Teva sandals. They also make great campsite shoes but still have a lot of support for hiking and other activities
Daypack – If I’m doing a quick day hike of 10-12 miles or less, I’m obsessed with my Osprey Daylite. It’s the perfect size to cram water and snacks for the hike. Plus, if I have a light layer, it fits in the pack as well.
What’s in My Pack? – Water is always the very first thing that goes into my daypack and I love using these Nalgene water bottles because the wide mouth on the bottle makes it really easy to clean. Some snacks that you can almost always find in my backpack are beef jerky tender bites, peanut butter & honey crackers, peanut m&ms, trail mix and dehydrated fruit strips. If I’m going to have a long hiking day, or I’m hiking somewhere that I know I’m going to sit and hang out for a while, I am obsessed with my little mini camp chair – it only fits in my Deuter pack, though, not the Osprey.
Do You Want to Track Your National Park Adventures? – I actually authored this National Park Journal and I’m really proud of it! This is the perfect guided journal with fun facts and simple tips to help you make the most of your trip and, most importantly, curate your memories in each park! I’d be honored to be part of your national park adventures in this way!
Lily Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 0.8 mile loop / east / about 30 feet
Parking Area: Lily Lake has its own parking area. It is small, but bigger than many.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? 100% yes. It’s flat and short. My kids (3 and 5) did it on foot multiple times.
Lily Lake sits outside of the park entrances and is the closest of these lakes technically within the national park to Estes Park. It’s a really pretty lake with mountain views. This trail is super easy, very flat and this simple loop goes around the lake. Often, there are moose in this lake – be mindful, of this and give animals, especially mamas, plenty of space. We have seen a cow moose and her baby(ies), the past two years, all four times in the evening. We love doing this trail at the end of the day, especially after dinner, as a nice cap to a day of exploring. It’s a surprisingly beautiful spot for sunset!
Bear Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 0.7 mile loop / easy / about 50 feet
Parking Area: Bear Lake Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
Other Trails to Combine – This is commonly added on to other lake trails in the area, especially Bierstadt, the Emerald Lake Trail and even Mills Lake!
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? 100% yes. It’s flat and short. My kids (3 and 5) did it on foot multiple times.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Bear Lake is a stunning lake at the base of several snow-capped mountains. This is an extremely easy loop that can be added on to several hikes in this area. We tack it on to hikes like Emerald Lake and Mills Lake, but it’s also a really amazing spot for both sunrise and sunset. In fact, I saw probably the most amazing sunset of my life out here. It’s a very straightforward loop that packs a big, scenic punch. If you want essentially zero incline (although the incline isn’t bad at all) start the loop from the right of the trailhead.
Sprague Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 0.8 mile loop / easy / about 40 feet
Parking Area: Sprague Lake Parking Area, this is a larger parking area, so if this is your destination, you might not need to use the Park and Ride
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? 100% yes. It’s flat and short. My kids (3 and 5) did it on foot.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Sprague Lake is another really beautiful loop with a lake with slightly bluer water than others. It’s a very popular spot for families to lounge, picnic and walk around the trail. It’s a very straightforward hike, would be a wonderful addition to any of the hikes here, if you wanted a bit more of a the great outdoors. We also saw moose in this lake in the evening, just as a heads up. Plus, the nerd in me loved the interpretive signs around the lake giving some of the history of the area.
Nymph Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 1 mile, total, out and back / moderately easy / approximately 240 feet
Parking Area: Bear Lake Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
Other Trails to Combine: This is the first lake you come to en route to Dream, Haiyaha or Emerald Lakes.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Yes, our 3 and 5 year olds did this trail!
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
This is a really lovely hike. It’s the easiest of the lakes beyond Bear Lake. It is almost wrapped in pine trees. It doesn’t have grande mountain views that a lot of the other lakes do, but I love the trees surrounding it. Plus, there are almost always lily pads growing, which gives it more of that wood nymph feel to it. It’s always a sweet hike, that you could simply do and turn back, but also, I love that it’s a destination to check off as progress both there, and back, to get to other bigger hikes like Dream, Emerald, and Haiyaha Lakes.
Dream Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 2 miles, total, out and back / moderately easy / approximately 360 feet
Parking Area: Bear Lake Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
Other Trails to Combine: This is the second trail en route to Haiyaha and Emerald Lakes. Both are beautiful additions to this lake.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Yes, our 3 and 5 year olds did this trail!
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Dream Lake is a super special lake. Visually, it’s actually one of my favorites. It has really beautiful mountain views and also has a lot of trees around it. So it feels rugged and alpiney, but there’s also green. It is the middle lake where you turn off to go to either Haiyaha to the left or Emerald Lake to the right, but it would also make a beautiful destination on its own.
Bierstadt Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 3.1 miles, total, out and back / moderate / about 320 feet
Parking Area: Bierstadt Lake Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
Other Trails to Combine: You can tack Bear Lake onto this. We did it as just this one.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Yes, our kids did this trail.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Of all the lakes on this list, this was, honestly, my least favorite. I think it was still worth doing, especially because we had done so many of them multiple times, but it doesn’t have the same “wow” factor as many of the others. First of all, the hike was harder then I was expecting, weirdly, and you only have one small part of the hike in which you get to see the lake or even surrounding mountains once you get up the pretty intense switchbacks – which those views were stunning. Oh, and Matt wants people to know, the trail was covered in horse poop. It was a lovely hike when we were looking for something new to do, but I personally wouldn’t prioritize it over any of the others on this list. If you have already done the other, you could add it to another hike.
Emerald Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 3.3 miles, total, out and back / moderately difficult / a little over 700ft
Parking Area: Bear Lake Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
Other Trails to Combine: En route, you’ll pass Nymph and Dream Lakes, and if you’re ready for a slightly bigger adventure, you can add Haiyaha Lake, which is beyond Dream Lake in the other direction!
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? While our kids haven’t done this one, based on other trails they have done, I would say our kids could absolutely do it.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Emerald Lake is one of the most popular alpine lake hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s absolutely stunning with beautiful color in the lake, massive snow-capped peaks – including Flattop Mountain – behind it and it really isn’t overly difficult to get to. When we were there, a Scandinavian man swam across this lake, which I personally would not recommend, haha. But it was a gorgeous hike, and I love that if you tack Bear Lake loop on at the beginning you can see 4 beautiful lakes in a relatively short hike!
Check out my post on hiking to Bear, Nymph, Dream and Emerald Lakes HERE
Mills Lake
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 5.4 miles, total, out and back / moderate / about 840 feet
Parking Area: Glacier Gorge Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
You can also use Bear Lake trailhead, but the trail back ends on an uphill that feels shockingly like torture after a longer hike. It also adds about .6 miles to the hiking total.
Other Trails to Combine: If you wanted to add a little extra adventure to this trail, you could add the Loch on to this.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Yes! Our daughter did this on foot at 4 years old!
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Mills Lake is one of my favorite lake hikes in the world. The challenge to get here is just enough that the gorgeous lake feels like a huge payoff. Plus, it’s difficult enough, and less popular enough, that you don’t have many people joining you up there. The backdrop off Mills Lake gives off very Canadian Rocky vibes – majestic, serene and the type of landscape that dwarfs you in the most incredible way. It’s especially majestic when the mountains are snow-capped. The whole trail is so beautiful and passes Alberta Falls, several bridges, beautiful overlooks and a pond just before getting to Mills Lake. Little peninsulas jutting out into the lake that make for the perfect spots to sit, rest and have a snack. This hike is super special to me and I already am looking forward to going back there.
Read my detailed post on the Mills Lake Trail HERE.
Lake Haiyaha
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 4 miles, total, out and back / moderate / about 860 feet
Parking Area: Bear Lake Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
Other Trails to Combine: You can add Emerald Lake on to this trail, if you wanted to add a couple of miles!
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Yes, with a caveat. This trail ends with a boulder scramble. Unlike the other lakes, the edge isn’t one you can simply hike right up to. Our kids stayed back a bit further from the shore than Matt and I did.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
This year, we finally made it to Lake Haiyaha. To be honest, we didn’t do a lot of research before taking this hike, so we had no idea that the trail ended with a giant boulder scramble to get to see the actual lakeshore. The hike up was really beautiful and splits off at Dream Lake to continue up. The trail did have more sheer drop-offs, I felt, on the switchback section not too far past Dream Lake than other trails we took to lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park. I felt like I had to keep a closer eye on my kids than many other hikes. I think that Lake Haiyaha wins the award for most beautiful water, because it has that teal/turquoise water color that most of the other lakes here don’t have.
Full trail guide post is coming soon!
The Loch
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 5.8 miles, total, out and back / moderate / approximately 1,060 feet
Parking Area: Glacier Gorge Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
You can also use Bear Lake trailhead, but the trail back ends on an uphill that feels shockingly like torture after a longer hike. It also adds about .6 miles to the hiking total.
Other Trails to Combine: This would be a great addition to the Mills Lake Trail for a little extra adventure.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? I think this would be too much for our 3-year-old, and on the edge of what our 5-year-old could do.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
This is another top lake for me. We stopped here en route to Sky Pond, and it was almost equally as beautiful as Sky Pond to me. Because the lake is lower in elevation, you get all the beautiful trees surrounding it, there’s a large tree-covered peninsula that takes you out over the lake where you get the most beautiful mountain view. This would be one of my favorite spots in the park to just truly sit and spend a large chunk of time.
Lake of Glass
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 8.4 miles, total, out and back / difficult / approximately 1,700 feet
Parking Area: Glacier Gorge Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
You can also use Bear Lake trailhead, but the trail back ends on an uphill that feels shockingly like torture after a longer hike. It also adds about .6 miles to the hiking total.
Other Trails to Combine: You pass the Loch on the way up to this one; take the little detour on the way up! You might be pooped on the way down.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Personally, this isn’t a lake I’d be comfortable taking our kids to yet because of the waterfall scramble up. We did pass some kids (8-12-ish aged) and we did see one girl doing it who cried. So, I would definitely think hard before taking a little kid on this one.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
Fun fact about Lake of Glass is that if you haven’t done a ton of research on the Sky Pond Trail, you just might think that this is Sky Pond. Because we did until someone we had seen earlier on the trail told us it wasn’t. To get up to this lake, there is a class 4 scramble just before this lake alongside Timberline Falls. This isn’t for the faint of heart, and the rocks can be slick. Know your limits and know there is no shame in turning around. We saw several people turn back at the waterfall. Lake of glass is absolutely beautiful, and worth the effort to see. It is cold and windy up there, with no trees to block the wind. But if you make it all the way up there, be sure not to miss Sky Pond.
Sky Pond
Trail Distance / Difficulty / Approximate Elevation Change: 8.9 miles, total, out and back / difficult / approximately 1,770 feet
Parking Area: Glacier Gorge Parking Area – this fills up quickly, but there is a park and ride that you can use.
You can also use Bear Lake trailhead, but the trail back ends on an uphill that feels shockingly like torture after a longer hike. It also adds about .6 miles to the hiking total.
Other Trails to Combine: You pass the Loch and Lake of Glass en route to Sky Pond.
Is this Trail Kid-Friendly? Personally, this isn’t a lake I’d be comfortable taking our kids to yet because of the waterfall scramble up. We did pass some kids (8-12-ish aged) and we did see one girl doing it who cried. So, I would definitely think hard before taking a little kid on this one.
Don’t forget, you need Bear Lake Timed Entry for this trail between 5 am and 9pm!
This is the lake just beyond Lake of Glass (for more trail info, see above). Sky Pond was absolutely a difficult hike to get to. While the official mileage was 8.9 miles on the National Park website, we clocked this hike with all the lake quests we went on, at 10.5 miles, and it was hard, but oh-so worth it. Sky Pond sits at just shy of 11,000 feet and being well above the tree line, you’d be amazed at how bone-chilling the breeze is up there. But wowzah! It’s an incredible view! I would recommend everyone who is physically able to do this hike at least once in their life.
Full Trail Guide to this hike is coming soon!
Clearly, the mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park are absolutely stunning, the wildlife is unforgettable and there are other sites like rivers, waterfalls, flora and more. However, the lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park are the show-stealers for me. Between the lakes themselves and the views around them, I’ll forever be trying to return to these lakes and discover new lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park!
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