Our destination on this road trip was Colorado, to see Brian in Boulder. We spent a couple of days in Boulder where we walked (can't really call it hiking) on the Boulder Canyon Trail shown in the photo above. The photo shows Boulder Creek in the shadows with the trail on the left in the sunshine.
From Boulder we drove to Steamboat Springs for a long weekend, stopping on the way in Winter Park for a hike and lunch (Friday 10/26). We hiked a loop consisting of the Yankee Doodle, Serendipity, and Meadow Trails. These trails are both hiking and mountain bike trails. Our hike was 2.9 miles with an elevation gain of 500'. Our route took us through and around the former Ski Idlewild ski area which operated from 1961 to 1986. The photo below, taken near the highest point on our hike (9277'), shows Winter Park Resort and the Vasquez Mountains in the distance:
Our first hike in Steamboat Springs (Saturday 10/27) was on the Emerald Mountain Trail Network, a combination of hiking and mountain bike trails. We hiked to the radio towers on the summit of Emerald Mountain (elevation 8252'), also called Quarry Mountain. The selfie below was taken at the former quarry and shows the Steamboat Ski Resort on Mount Werner in the background:
At the bottom of Emerald Mountain is the Howelsen Hill Ski Area, a popular training facility for ski jumpers. There are multiple ski jumps. The photo below is looking down from the top of one of the smaller ski jumps:
Our hike on Emerald Mountain was 6.5 miles with an elevation gain of 1300'.
On our last day in Steamboat Springs (Sunday 10/28), we visited Fish Creek Falls in the Routt National Forest. The photo below shows the lower falls, which are near the parking lot:
We hiked to the upper falls, shown below:
Our hike to the upper falls and back was 5.2 miles with an elevation gain of 1600'.
No comments:
Post a Comment