Things To Do in Rocky Mountain National Park

Remnants from the area's mining and ranching days of the late 1800s and early 1900s persist in the park. Hikers will encounter the ruins of several historic cabins on the Lulu City and Eugenia Mine trails. Exhibits in the Moraine Park Visitor Center and Museum on Bear Lake Road are mainly on natural history, but the building itself -- a log structure built as a social center in 1923 -- is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Holzwarth Trout Lodge Historic Site, a dude ranch dating back to the 1920s, is an easy half-mile walk from Trail Ridge Road on the west side of the park. Denver saloon owner John Holzwarth started it as a cattle ranch after Prohibition forced him to find a new line of work. But Holzwarth discovered that it was easier, and more profitable, to take in paying guests (at $2 per day or $11 per week, including room, meals, and a horse) than to do the hard work of actual ranching. Visitors can visit the site, but do not have access to the interiors.