At a Glance
- Crowds: Much lower than east
- Moose: Best in RMNP
- Trail Ridge: 12,183 ft
- Best Light: Dawn on CO River
Why the West Side for Photography
The east side of Rocky Mountain National Park — Bear Lake, Sprague Lake, Horseshoe Park — produces the park's most photographed images. Tens of thousands of photographers have stood at the same spots and shot the same scenes. The west side, accessed from Grand Lake, offers the same park quality with a fraction of the human competition and significantly better moose photography than anything on the east side.
The Kawuneeche Valley's wide river meadow and the flanking Never Summer Range create a different compositional vocabulary than the east side's cliff-and-lake imagery. Photographers who have worked the east side for years find the west side revelatory.
Key West-Side Photography Locations
Colorado River Trail (Timber Creek area): The premier moose photography location in RMNP. Dawn arrivals consistently produce moose sightings in the riverside willows. The flat trail provides stable shooting positions and the wide valley allows multiple camera angles on feeding animals.
Holzwarth Historic Site area: The Colorado River meadows near the old ranch produce beautiful wide-angle landscape images with the Never Summer Range as backdrop. In fall, aspen-lined sections of the river add color to the scene.
Trail Ridge Road summit area: The Alpine Visitor Center viewpoints provide above-treeline compositions with the Never Summer Range visible to the west and the Kawuneeche Valley dropping away below. The scale of the landscape at this elevation is difficult to convey photographically — a wide angle with a strong foreground element works best.
Permits and Logistics
RMNP entry fee or America the Beautiful pass required. Timed entry permits are NOT generally required for the Grand Lake corridor — a significant advantage for photographers who want dawn access without the 5 AM permit scramble required for popular east-side locations.
For backcountry photography requiring overnight access, backcountry permits are required. Apply through recreation.gov well in advance for summer dates. The RMNP Backcountry Office in Grand Lake handles walk-up permit availability.