Access to "the land above the trees" is the single most distinctive aspect of Rocky Mountain National Park. Trail Ridge Road, the highest in any national park, transports you easily to this realm of open sky, tiny but brilliant flowers, and harsh climate. Approximately one-third of this national park is above the limit where trees may grow in northern Colorado.

The Alpine Ecosystem starting at elevations from 11,000 to 11,500 feet, depending on exposure, is an area of extremes. Strong, frequent winds and cold temperatures help limit what plants can grow there. Most alpine plants are perennials. Many plants are dwarfed, but their few blossoms may be full-sized. Cushion plants, looking like ground-hugging clumps of moss, escape the strong winds blowing a few inches above them. Cushion plants may also have long taproots extending deep into the rocky soil. Many flowering plants of the tundra have dense hairs on stems and leaves to provide wind protection or red-colored pigments capable of converting the sun's light rays into heat. Some plants take two or more years to form flower buds, which survive the winter below the surface and then open and produce fruit with seeds in the few weeks of summer.

Where tundra soil is well-developed, grasses and sedges are common. Non-flowering lichens cling to rocks and soil. Their enclosed algal cells can photosynthesize at any temperature above 32° F, and the outer fungal layers can absorb more than their own weight in water. The adaptations for survival of drying winds and cold may make tundra vegetation seem very hardy, but in some respects the tundra is very fragile. Repeated footsteps often destroy tundra plants, leaving exposed soil to blow away, and recovery may take hundreds of years.

Plants and Animals of the Alpine Ecosystem

Shrubs:
Willow
Grasses and Grass-like Plants:
Alpine Blue Grass	Alpine Timothy
Skyline Blue Grass	Spike Trisetum
Tufted Hair Grass	Spreading Wheatgrass
Kobresia	Spike Wood-Rush
Pyrennian Sedge
Forbs:
Alpine Avens	Queen's Crown
Alpine Bistort	Marsh Marigold
American Bistort	Mertensia
Pygmy Bitterroot	Rydbergia
Snow Buttercup	Alpine Paintbrush
Dwarf Clover	Alpine Phlox
Parry's Clover	Moss Pink
One-Headed Daisy	Alpine Sandwort
Black-Headed Daisy	Saxifrage
Elephantella	Sky Pilot
Alpine Forget-Me-Not	Alpine Sorrel
Arctic Gentian	Alpine Wallflower
King's Crown	Blue Columbine
Birds:
Prairie Falcon	White-Tailed Ptarmigan
Rosy Finch	Common Raven
Horned Lark	White-Crowned Sparrrow
Water Pipit
Mammals:
Badger	Snowshoe Hare
Bobcat	Mountain Lion
Chipmunk	Yellow-Bellied Marmot
Coyote	Pine Marten
Mule Deer	Deer Mouse
Elk	Pika
Long Tailed Weasel	Pocket Gopher
Red Fox	Vole
Bighorn Sheep	Bushy-Tailed Wood Rat
Ground Squirrel