Rocky Mountain

Rocky Mountain National Park was established in 1915 in northern Colorado and protects some 1,076 km² on both sides of the Continental Divide, the line that separates the waters flowing to the Pacific from those flowing to the Atlantic. Its creation was the result of a sustained campaign by the naturalist Enos Mills, regarded as the park's father.

Its defining feature is altitude: more than sixty summits rise above 3,700 metres, with Longs Peak as its high point at 4,346, and roughly a third of the park lies above the tree line, in alpine tundra. It is one of the largest expanses of that ecosystem accessible in the contiguous United States, and Trail Ridge Road, which crosses the park staying above 3,700 metres for kilometres at a stretch, is the highest continuous paved road in the country.

Below follow the subalpine spruce and fir forests, the ponderosa and lodgepole pine woods, and the glacial valleys with wet meadows where elk gather, especially during the autumn rut, one of the park's best-known wildlife spectacles. They are joined by bighorn sheep, moose, black bear, marmot and pika. Visitor pressure, which exceeds four million a year, forced the introduction of a timed-entry reservation system, one of the first in the United States park system.