Aspen to Crested Butte

The adventure begins August 10th with Gary, Sue, Alan and Caren and of course Audrey.

Had dinner at hotel Jerome on the patio. Food was really good, service sucked. Order the ahi tacos , really really good and unique $25 for 3. Weather was perfect but town was crowded even with covid

Started the hike at the base of Maroon bells at maroon lake at 7 am. Took about a 20 min drive to get there from town. Just brought a Columbia long sleeve shirt and a waterproof windbreaker. Didn’t need the water shoes for creek crossings. Packed 48 oz of water but should have packed 64oz. I would have made it with that amount of water but borrowed some from a friend. The bells were beautiful as the sunrise was hitting them (lots of people there to take pics of sunrise).

The beginning of the path was quite rocky (loose rocks) so glad I had 2 hiking poles. We hiked through beautiful aspen groves as we climbed a gentle uphill. Then it opened up to some grand views of the maroon bells like this.....

We really didn’t see many wildflowers at this elevation as they were higher up in elevation. Talking to a local they said this was a peak for the wildflowers. Here you can see the trail to the top of the pass .....

When I got to the top and here were the stats

The top was windy. There‘s not a lot of room at the top, it’s kind of a knife-edge at the top of the saddle. The view towards the created butte side was beautiful. about a quarter-mile down we saw the best wildflowers and that continued most of the way down. The trail was much smoother (very few rocks just packed dirt)

The trail in the final 2 miles dropped into more pine forest. You end up at the west maroon trailhead and alpine express was waiting for us. We arrived around 3:15. The shuttle took us back to town on a bumpy dirt road To our hotel called the Nordic Inn. Nice old hotel, had jacuzzi, and comp breakfast. The rooms were basic and clean. Had a view of the ski resort.

Went into town and had a great pizza dinner at secret stash pizza. Sat outdoors along the main drag. Lots of people and the town had a great vibe. The town was quaint and rustic, girls thought it was adorable with all its little shops and restaurants.

The elevation at the hotel was 9400 ft.

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Drove from Crested butte to Black Canyon of the Gunnison national park. The park was about what I expected with 2300ft deep canyons and a river at the bottom. we drove to lake city and spent the night in these cute little cabins and had a nice dinner at climb (elevated eating)

The drive to lake city cut across the Colorado plateau and was really beautiful.

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Drove from lake city to great sand dunes national park 3 hrs. At the dunes, you park and hike across a flat sandy field to the dunes which range in height from 50 ft to 700ft. The sand field you cross fills with water during a rain. The sand is fine just like you see at the beach.

A lot of people brought makeshift riding boards which were a cross between a skateboard and snowboard with neoprene straps to put your feet in. Everybody essentially went straight down and didn’t make a turn, also they went pretty slow. We were surprised at how crowded the parking lot was considering it was a Friday and CCOVIDovid. The dunes were very graceful with different hues in the sand making them look like a painting. They say that despite the fact they are sand the dunes they have been stable for over a hundred years.

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Drove about 4 hours to boulder and checked into a cabin in Chautauqua. It had a nice small kitchen and is quite old and quaint. Walked along the Pearl st mall which has changed a lot since we have been here - much more higher-end stores & with COVID all the restaurants had outdoor seating and the street was blocked off to traffic. Very crowded with school (CU) starting up in about 10 days.

Lots of crickets at night. The next day hiked around flat irons. Took route to flat iron #1 and 2 which was about a 5-mile hike and 1200 ft elevation. That's the trail you see the huge rock scree on it.

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Drove about an hour from Boulder to Rocky Mountain National Park and stayed at the Stanley Hotel in estates park. Supposed to check in at 4 but they didn’t get us a room till 6:30. The hotel is old but in good shape. Stephen King came up with the shining in room 217. The filming wasn’t done here because the film crew didn’t think it was scary enough.

We had dinner at the restaurant and they were understaffed. They don’t have a pool which would have been nice. There was a fire in Glenwood springs which meant that there was a lot of smoke in the air.

So you needed a reservation to get into the park but you could get in if you went in before 6 am so we did that and parked at the bear lake parking lot. We hiked from there to Mills lake and Jewel lake but first hiked to nymph lake.

The hike was about 8 miles and 1250 elevation gain. We ended up at bear lake and then back to the car

We then drove up to the top of trail ridge road to the visitors center. Stopped along the drive to take in some great vistas.

Back to the hotel and dinner at Dunraven which was good. We ate outside with a view of the lake. The brussel sprout leaves were really good and had an Italian mule which was Tuaca Italian brandy, ginger beer, and a little simple syrup.