Rocky Mountain National Park
One of the most visited parks in the US and rightly so. Drive the Trail Ridge Road which crests at over 12,000 feet and has over 300 miles of hiking trails, wildflowers and sweet-smelling Ponderosa pines.
The views are spectacular as is the amount of wildlife you see on the road. Even at the very highest point you can see marmots and bighorn sheep while lower down you might see elk, moose, black bears, beavers and otters.
Mesa Verde National Park
This wild landscape of deep canyons and expansive vistas is home to over a thousand species, including several that live nowhere else on earth.
There are also more than 4,000 archaeological sites in the Designated World Heritage site-listed park of which 600 are cliff dwellings. Of these, one of the most famous is the Cliff Palace. Drive the 6-mile Mesa Top Loop Road which gives you an excellent view of the entire park.
Great Sand Dunes National Park
An enormous sandpit covering 30 square miles with dunes towering 750 feet into the air, this is a surreal park, perhaps best seen at sunrise and sunset to get the best of the colours.
There are plenty of ways to enjoy the park including renting a sandboard or sand sled, go riding through the dunes or take a challenging 4×4 adventure around the disappearing Medano Creek. The park is a dark skies preserve and the local rangers offer astronomy programmes.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison
Big enough to be overwhelming, yet intimate enough to feel the pulse of time, Black Canyon of the Gunnison has some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rock, and craggiest spires in North America.
Carved out by the Gunnison River over the course of two million years, this natural wonder is packed with adventurous activities, including trout fishing on the Gunnison, hiking trails from the more mild in the rims to the more extreme in the Inner Canyon, and scenic beauty throughout.
