What is there to say about Rocky Mountain National Park that hasn’t been said before, by the millions of people who have set foot on its famous trails, or set eyes out on its mind-bending panoramas?

I surely said a lot, years ago, when my partner and I visited the Park for the first time. On our first trip to RMNP, we had no idea what awaited us at the trailhead. We had no idea how stunning and magnetic this place would be. We were hypnotized by the splendor, by the awesome beauty of every mountain, the infinite height of every timeworn tree. It was a place so unlike where we lived, with every bend of the trail showing us a sight we could never have imagined.

This time around, we felt a little bit like veterans, calmer and more confident. We anticipated the Park’s brilliance, which we drank in greedily, but it also still managed to surprise us, wrap us up in its wonder, this time on a very different scale.

We spent a good chunk of our time in the Park driving and walking the paths along Trail Ridge Road, one of the highest paved roads in the continental United States. The road took us up past the tree line and into the alpine tundra, an ecosystem that blinds and numbs in winter, but in summer, rolls and flows and sparkles with the kind of subtle beauty that may surprise those expecting nothing but rugged vistas.

The plants in the tundra stay small, grow close to the soil surface, their thick taproots — sometimes reaching depths of five or six feet — cementing them to the cold, rocky earth. The plants don otherworldly names like phlox and sandwort, gentian, mertensia, bistort, saxifrage, and sky pilot. This tiny botanical menagerie sits tucked between boulders as ancient as the sky itself. An impressionistic creation, as varied up close as a million multi-colored paint strokes — and from afar, blending together into a single great green swatch.

Our human eyes train our brains to think “grass.” And I saw many people jump off trail and frolic in what they thought was open field, despite the warning signs and interpretive plaques. But I also saw people crouched down, eye to eye with the wildest columbine and clover, small green aliens peering back with equal curiosity, like the unknown beings at the bottom of the ocean caught in a submarine spotlight.

Spending as many years as I have in Chicago, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing the grace and charm in an overlooked environment. For centuries in the midwest, the prairie was systematically mowed down and built on, transformed into a flat sea of farmland, its biological (and human) diversity whittled away. When I look at the prairie, at the chunks of it that still remain, I don’t just see grass. I see a conversation, a dialogue between hundreds of species, a dance where scattered seedpods twirl in the wind and technicolor blooms beckon bumble and buzz.

In tundra, as in prairie, I see how each brushstroke builds the full painting. I see how the parts make up the whole, and how Rocky Mountain National Park wouldn’t be what it is without each ecosystem, each animal, each leaf and sunspot and gust of wind.

On our drive back down the mountain, from peaktop to valley floor, my admiration for this place grew with abandon. From the turnouts and overlooks, I no longer saw sweeping, giant, picture-perfect. Without moving a muscle, my imagination filled in the gaps, zooming me in close, from macro to micro. I now saw the individual elements, bits of life and moments of history that together make the Park what it was and what it’s become.

As we hurtled back toward the entrance, I noticed the low-leaning sun beginning to pull long spruce shadows onto the forest floor. Thick-barked elders waved us along our retreat back to Meeker Park, the sapling spirits housed within them twinkling at us in the afternoon light. This return trip to the Park taught me to see on multiple timescales at once: geologic, human, and the in betweens. It taught me to slow down, and kneel low, to look for what’s hidden but there, and to find what’s long gone and what ashes remain.

I saw so much, and learned so much, and felt so connected to this incredible place. And it’s possible that there really isn’t much to say about Rocky Mountain that hasn’t already been said. But maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with repeating this simple, unfailing truth: it’s amazing.

Rocky Mountain is the biggest national park in Colorado, a state already bursting with large expanses of protected land. RMNP sits about an hour’s drive from Fort Collins or Boulder, and an hour and a half from the state’s capital city, Denver. This is the kind of place where a day or two won’t feel like nearly enough, so do yourself a favor and pick a campsite that’s nearby. There are campgrounds in the park boundaries, though most require reservations well in advance. A favorite hike (ever and in this Park) takes you up to Lake Haiyaha, a gorgeous alpine lake, hidden away from the crowds at more accessible Bear Lake. Though with Rocky Mountain, finding a dud hike is nearly impossible. I hope that when you go, you’ll agree, and then fall in love with this place just like I have.

Imagine you’ve lived your entire life indoors, tucked deep in your comfort zone. Imagine you’ve just driven halfway across the country, a thousand miles, to a new state, a new city, a new house. Imagine you give yourself a few days to breathe, to settle in this new space, to learn the smell of the air, and the direction of the breeze. And then imagine leaving it all behind again, and driving off into the unknown.

Fort Collins was built at the eastern foot of the Colorado Rockies. Just a few minutes outside of the city, past stone farms and gas stations, bookended by high clearance vehicles sporting waves of dried mud cake, we began our climb.

When we left the city, we had a direction in mind, and a campground destination that we hoped would have a spot available for us. That was it. This was our first time, the first adventure, the acknowledgment of fear and the first shouldering our way right through it.

Switchbacking up the mountainside, ears popping with the elevation change, the mood shifted when the sun fell back behind a cloud and the road became a dark hallway. The shark-tooth walls of St. Vrain Canyon jutted up from either side of the slow, ambling creek, forming a tunnel of red matte stone. The gray sky thickened and rain began to fall. We slowed our speed and allowed ourselves the luxury of locking eyes onto each sharpened peak, each cluster of dark, damp evergreen, a landscape so entirely different from the one we left behind in the midwest. When we finally pulled into the morning-still campground – a few tents scattered, a few vans with curtains drawn shut – we jumped outside to listen to the quiet.

We picked our first site of the trip, an idyllic meadow dotted with wildflowers and stands of young aspens and baby pink boulders cloaked in frothy green lichen. It was our first time choosing a spot for the tent. The first time inflating the sleeping pad. The first time choosing what stays in the car and what comes out. The first time filling the bear locker. The first time trying to unlock the bear-proof dumpster. The first time hearing the sound of rain on the tent fly. The first time realizing we get no cell service. The first time hearing a pack of wild coyotes yipping and yowling in the near distance, and the first time truly understanding that thin nylon walls are all that separated us from everything else.

When you’ve spent most of your life indoors, it might be a strange feeling, knowing you’re about to spend the next few weeks of your life outside. Our closed tent would eventually come to feel as safe as a shut door, locked from the inside – surely, a trick of the brain as it was still just a tent.

We were in the elements now. When it rained, we’d feel it. When the sun rose, we’d welcome its orange glow through closed eyelids. When a chipmunk sniffed at the soft soil by our heads, we’d hear its tiny breaths, feel the vibration of its paws when it skittered up a nearby tree. There was no longer an out there or an in here. We slept, ate, washed, talked, sat, read, were in the forest. It was seamless, and it didn’t take us long to settle into the newness and make it familiar.

The first time leaning against discomfort and turning it into contentment. The first time fully accepting that there’s no work to be done, no responsibilities to answer to, nothing to do but sit and take notice. The first time learning to wait, and to listen, and be rewarded for the attention.

We spent the first 8 hours of our camping experience in our tent. A sprinkle turned to a shower, which grew to a storm of varying strength and steadiness. We watched the rain bounce and gather on the outside of the fly, the beads growing with each added drop before racing down the tent’s sloped dome. The tiniest meteor shower, every shooting star a gravity-held trickle. But eventually, the splashing slowed, the tempo of the rain decreased to a distant echo, and we unzipped our tent doors and crawled out under cool, blue moonlight.

Our initiation was over. We were part of the forest now. And it would be tough to pull us back inside.

For the first few nights of our Colorado camping road trip, we stayed at Meeker Park Overflow near Estes Park. The sites here are all first-come first-served and cost $12/night. We made sure to arrive early on a weekday morning since we were traveling during the summer, so there were only a handful of other campers already settled in when we got there. I imagine arriving later in the week or on the weekend would make it more difficult to find an open spot. Meeker is very close to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, so if you plan on visiting those areas, this is an excellent place to stay. We stayed at site #19, which looks like a fairy tale. We didn’t have much interaction with the camp host, but she swung by as we were packing up to let us know the fire ban had been lifted and seemed like a delightful person. I have very fond memories of this place since it was where this whole Colorado adventure began – it’s a great place to start your own adventure.

When we rolled into Larimer County, we arrived at the end of our planned route. Two long haul drives got us from Chicago to Omaha and then to Fort Collins where a friend had arranged for us to stay with her parents for a few days. That was as far as our itinerary went. We resisted planning every moment of our trip, every destination, every campground. We wanted to keep our options open, to be able to spend more time in a place, to change routes if something popped up, or if someone gave us a solid recommendation. Simply, we wanted to be able to set our own pace, which is really what we had been missing from our hectic daily lives back in Chicago.

We imagined the transition from daily-grind to choose-your-own-adventure would be a little bumpy, so the four days we spent in Fort Collins were a perfect launch pad. A vacation before the vacation. Briney olives and homemade daiquiris, dinners on the patio, boat rides on the lake, hot showers, soft carpets, and access to a superautomatic espresso machine. Our adopted parents couldn’t have been more gracious or welcoming. So when they recommended we spend our Saturday hiking Horsetooth Trail, that’s exactly what we did.

The drive to the trailhead filled us with anticipation, up into the mountains and past Horsetooth Reservoir, which was buzzing with mid-summer activity. This would be our first hike of the trip. No weekend emails or private lessons or client deadlines. Just our packs, our map, and the trail.

The path took us up the foothills and through aspen groves and evergreen stands, past soft-leaved alpine natives and high desert pricklers. The change in elevation challenged our lungs and our legs. The unfiltered Colorado sun breathed heavily on our shoulders, and our midwestern bodies struggled against the rugged elements. But we pushed on. And the higher we climbed, and the rockier the trail became, the more determined we were to push up that final, exposed scramble.

At the top, we were treated to a rare view of the valley behind Horsetooth, a view only those who climb these same steps have seen, a view we felt privileged to experience. We braced ourselves against the winds and peered out over the edge.

While meeting the other hikers who had also made it to the top of the rock, the afternoon clouds began to roll in. A few flickers of lightning pushed us back on our descent to the trailhead, down and around the mountain. Through meadows of grass swaying against the rocking breeze, along sandy pathways dotted with shimmering flakes of mica and flanked by mottled pink sandstone. I had to stop every few steps, not to catch my breath as I had done on the way up the mountain, but to let my eyes wander over each and every bit of the trail, at every part of its beauty. I let the gratitude wash over me.

That evening, when we got back to the house, we looked out over the lake and spotted the telltale ridges of that scraggly smile – Horsetooth Rock. We looked at each other, amazed by what we’d just accomplished. When the parents got home and they asked us how our hike was, with wide eyes, we pointed across the lake.

“We were up there. We climbed that. It was incredible.”

Horsetooth Rock Trail is probably the most popular hike in the Fort Collins area. And for good reason – it’s visually stunning and physically demanding. The roundtrip hike took us close to five hours, though if you’re used to high altitude/elevation hiking, you can probably clock in a much shorter time. Bring lots of water (at the end of my two liter bladder, I still had about an hour left of hiking to go) and if you hike in summer, sunscreen and a hat are non-negotiable. The trail itself is very quiet, but try your best to get there early as the trailhead parking lot fills up quickly. Parking costs $6 per vehicle.