If you do a Google search of "snowshoeing Rocky Mountain National Park" you get several pages like "Ranger-led Snowshoe Walks in Rocky Mountain National Park", "Top 14 Snowshoeing Trails in Rocky Mountain National Park", "Best 10 Snowshoeing Trails in Rocky Mountain National Park", "The Complete Guide to Snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park", etc. While the snowshoe recommendations on these sites are a decent starting point, they genearly stick to the forested trails, are short, and don't get to great views. In my experience, there are much better snowshoeing adventures to be had in Rocky Mountain National Park. But they are largely undocumented.

A bit of background: When I lived in Washington, I had a group of friends I went snowshoeing with practically every winter weekend. We would drive as far as we could up a forest road (often not too far in the winter), park, and head directly up the forested slope. A few hours and several thousand feet later we would arrive at a summit with majestic views of the surrounding North Cascades. I loved these days out, and they were a great workout. When I moved to Colorado in 2019, I discovered that the general feeling about "slowshoeing" was that it was boring and for people not fit or adventurous to ski. Not to be discouraged but missing my gung ho Washington buddies, I started to head out into the nearby RMNP on my own, taking boot-beaten trails as far as I could and continuing onwards on snowshoes, always conscious of avalanche danger (usually minimal where I go) and route-finding. Over the course of my winter slowshoeing adventures, I have walked over numerous frozen alpine lakes and stood on several high summits, enjoying great powder and basking in glorious views. I have encountered a few random souls out snowshoeing, a few more on skis, and a few others headed to ice climbing routes. But overall once I get past the boot-packed trail, I have RMNP cloaked in its gleaming winter glory to myself.

Apart from this page, as far as I can tell there is really no comprehensive resource (guidebook or online) for snowshoeing into the heart of RMNP. Eventually I was inspired to put together this page, which gives a list of all of my winter hiking and snowshoeing adventures in Rocky Mountain National Park and the nearby Indian Peaks Wilderness. Sometimes the snow is consolidated enough that snowshoes are not needed, but if I hiked it in the winter and brought snowshoes, it is on this page.

Enjoy the snow!