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Horseshoe Falls

Horseshoe Falls is a broad cascade braiding down the Roaring River in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, spilling across a jumbled field of boulders known as the Alluvial Fan near Horseshoe Park. Unlike most of the park's waterfalls, it asks almost nothing of its visitors: a short, flat, fully accessible path leads from a parking lot to a viewpoint framed by aspens, with the jagged Mummy Range rising behind. The falls owe their horseshoe curve—and the entire wild, stony landscape—to a 1982 disaster. It is one of the easiest and most reliably rewarding stops in the park, ideal for families, casual visitors and anyone wanting mountain waterfalls without a strenuous hike. Park rangers single out autumn, when the aspens in nearby Endovalley turn gold around the falls.