Rocky Mountain National Park is a unit of the National Park Service. The park was established in 1915 to protect the natural resources of the park and to allow for visitor use and enjoyment. The Heart of the Rockies Education Program is part of the Interpretive Division of Rocky Mountain National Park. The park is about 255,000 acres and ranges in elevation from 8,000 to over 14,000 feet above sea level. It has forests of open ponderosa pine, thick lodgepole pine, and subalpine spruce and fir, and alpine tundra.