Step by step guide for landing a Rocky Mountain National Park backcountry permit

I’m writing this on the morning of Thursday, February 29th – Leap Day.

By this time tomorrow, landing a backcountry permit for Rocky Mountain National Park might well be impossible. That’s because at 8:00 AM MST (10:00 AM EST), the system opens on Recreation.gov, and thirsty permit-seekers will begin booking up the backcountry campsites at the lakes, mountains, and streams throughout the park with the kind of fervor you only see when Taylor Swift concert tickets go on sale.

To get one, you not only have to have your favorite routes pre-planned, you’ve got to be quick on your keyboard to get them booked before someone else gets there first. Here’s a step by step guide for what you’ll need to do to land one of these prized permits and get access to the parts of the park you want to see, when you want to see them.

How to land a RMNP backcountry permit

1. Create a Recreation.gov account, and make sure you get this done long before 8:00 AM MST on March 1st. The entire permit/booking process will take place through this site.
2. Navigate to the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness Permits page on Recreation.gov by either clicking on that link or typing that into the search bar. This page has both the basic booking information as well as links to key pieces of information like the Wilderness Campsite Map and the Snow & Campsite Details spreadsheet. That latter link is crucial to your booking process, since it includes info such as the average date each campsite is out from underneath the blankets of snow that cover it each winter. Lost Lake, for instance, usually has snow on it until July 6th, so keep tidbits like that very much in-mind when picking which dates you’d like to get to your sites. Select one too early, and you’ll be needing crampons and a shovel when you get there.
3. Under the green box on the right side of the Recreation.gov RMNP Wilderness Permit page that says ‘Available Permits’ will be a blue button that says Check Availability – click that, and you’ll enter the portal where, starting at 8:00 AM MST on March 1st, you’ll be able to select specific dates for specific campsites and book them.
4. If the variability of the booking process hadn’t overwhelmed you yet, it’s at this juncture where it might. You can see just how many moving parts there are – Starting Area, Group Size, and Date – and that’s before mentioning that the number of ‘sites’ at each campsite varies, too. Larger camping areas like those at Sandbeach Lake, for instance, have multiple sites – 4 individual and 1 group. In theory, that means that five different permits could be issued to camp there on any given night, with each ‘individual’ party containing up to 7 people. If you’re aiming for more solitude on your trip, aim for a site that only has 1 site on-location so that your party is the only one there – like Pear Lake, for instance. Of course, the fewer sites at each location means that only one party can be there any given night, so you’ll likely have to be a bit more flexible on which date you’re trying to go there since those permits book up quicker.
5. Figure out which is more important to you: date range, or location. If you’re coming to Colorado for a week in July, well, fix that week as your date range and toggle between Starting Area and individual sites until you land something you want to see while you’re out here. If, like me, you’re in the area and simply want to scoot up to see a particular place whenever you can, do the inverse – fix the Starting Area and toggle between dates until you see a time when it’s open (and out of the snow) that looks like you can set your schedule around it.
6. If you can cobble together some firm commitments from other group members now, do so (and include them while booking). That said, so long as the actual party does not eventually exceed 7, you should be able to modify your reservation to add them between the time of booking and the time you actually set foot on the trail. Should you so choose (and should there be availability), you can modify your actual trip and which campsites you have chosen after booking a permit, too. So, if you had your heart set on an East Inlet area trip when you scored a permit on March 1st but fell in love with a spot in Wild Basin after the fact, you can edit your trip to head to Wild Basin (if all the sites there aren’t already booked).
7. Have your backup routes ready. If Pear Lake is booked up at all the times that make sense to you, you can either a) throw up your hands and not visit the RMNP backcountry at all this year, or b) quickly pivot to see if, for instance, a Bluebird Lake camping trip is available. The quicker you can move down your pecking order, the better odds you’ll land something that works for you (and if you’ve done even the smallest amount of homework beforehand, even your Plan Z is going to end up a pretty beautiful trek).
8. The fee for booking a backcountry permit is $36. That’s broken down into a $6 reservation fee and $30 Wilderness Administrative Fee. If you’re going solo, it’s $36 on your chin. If you’re heading up with a trio of others, you’re each on the hook for $9, etc. That said, you’ll still have to pay the fee to enter the National Park when you arrive, less you already have a season pass or the all-park America the Beautiful Pass already in your quiver.
9. Try your hardest not to get pissed off that after doing all this legwork and research, you’re still going to have to calm down and wait many months before you get to pull off the trip. Few things are a wet blanket like getting hyped for epic summer backpacking trips only to look outside and see a cold March snow socking you in. Summer’s going to get here quick, and when it does, you’ll have this trip to greet you.

Best of luck on landing your permit tomorrow, and know that if you somehow manage to forget or get shut out, you can check back in down the road and see if there’s anything that’s opened up. RMNP does hold back a precious few number of permits for walk-ups if you’ve got that kind of flexibility, while the reality is that many people who book these trips on March 1st eventually have to cancel later on for various reasons. Heck, even if you do land a permit and book a trip right off the bat, you might want to check in later to see if planning another trip into the RMNP wilderness is open to you!

If you’re looking for deals on the gear you’ll need to camp in the Rocky Mountain National Park backcountry, check out the latest camping & hiking sale at Moosejaw before you go!