Rocky Mountain National Park's timed-entry reservation system returns on May 22 and runs through mid-October, the park announced. The system applies to entry on the Bear Lake Road corridor and to the park as a whole during peak hours.

Reservations are released in two waves. The first batch covers May 22 through June 30 and opened May 1 at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Recreation.gov. Subsequent batches for July, August, and September open one month in advance of the start of each window.

The Bear Lake Road permit is required from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. and covers access to the area's most-photographed lakes and trailheads, including Bear Lake, Bierstadt Lake, and Sprague Lake. A separate park-wide permit covers the rest of the park from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. only, with free entry available before 9 a.m. and after 2 p.m. without a reservation.

The permit costs $2 per vehicle on top of the standard $35 park entry fee. The America the Beautiful pass covers the entry fee but does not waive the timed permit. Travelers without a reservation can still enter outside the timed windows or use the Estes Park shuttle, which has no permit requirement.

For first-time visitors, the practical move is to book the Bear Lake corridor permit for a weekday morning, hike the popular loop trails before 10 a.m., then exit and re-enter the park on a non-permit basis later in the day. This pattern matches both park policy and the cooler hours that wildlife actively use.