Hints and Tips:
While planning our trip here are some things I learned. Your experience may differ under different circumstances, so take these for what they are worth.
- Permits are required for overnight stays in the backcountry and cost $20.
- The National Park website indicates that permit reservations may be made by phone from March 1 through March 15 and anytime after October 1. Reservations can be made in person or by mail anytime after March 1 for that calendar year.
- I didn't start looking for a permit until late May. I was able to call the backcountry office and talk to a ranger about available camps. The ranger was great and spent a good 30-45 minutes on the phone with me talking about the availability of certain camps and how nice those camps were. While I was unable to set the reservation while on the phone and still had to mail in my reservation request, I found the ranger to be extremely helpful.
- There is no quick way to get between the east side and west side of the park. It took us a good 2.5 hours to drive up and over Trail Ridge road and get from Grand Lake to Estes Park.
Information Sources:
Here are the sources I used to plan our trip. A word of warning about the book I used. This book is not designed to really be a trail guide. It does a great job of describing backcountry campsites in detail, having maps of each campground and even showing pictures of at least 1 site per campground. It does include distance from trailheads for the campgrounds and other pertanent information but it doesn't actually talk about the trails themselves.
Books:
- Leaving The Crowds Behind- A Guide To Backcountry Camping in Rocky Mountain National Park, John E. Heasley
Maps:
-
Trails Illustrated - Rocky Mountain National Parkl (map 200) (National Geographic)