Colorado
In 2022 I was lucky enough to have our company yearly team gathering to be located in Vail, Colorado. We immediate decided to extend this business trip with a personal roadtrip through Western USA. Here you can find all parks and locations we have visited in Colorado.
Rocky Mountains National Park
The world famous Rocky Mountains are very close to the city of Denver and were our first stop during our western USA road trip. For our visit we had to buy a ticket to pass the bear corridor during a time frame of 2 hours. Luckily we were in shoulder season and could have the slot early mornings like we desired. After a short check by a ranger we could continue to the Bear Lake Trailhead. Rangers and signs advise to park at the larger parkings and take the shuttle bus, however, if you are early you can also easily drive to the main parking lot. It saved us quite some time. We targetted to hike to Sky Pond.
We checked this hike with a ranger who said it was challenging but doable. He also mentioned it was a out and back hike, which is less interesting. He was right about the fact the hike was challenging, but we could have made it a kind of a loop if we followed the signs to Lake Haiyaha. Without too much extra distance we would also have made it back to the car park. Missed opportunity according to us. The first hike of the trip for Marie-Claire, the day after arrival on this altitude was very intensive. The last part to Sky Pound is really dangerous. First we had to pass a frozen area and then we had to overcome a few metres climbing up some rocks. It’s doable, but with the water floating over de rocks it was slippery. When you are cautious you’ll be fine.
After the intensive hike we moved further via Highway 34 (closed in winters) to Grand Lake. Underway we stopped at Forest Canyon overlook where you can see the treeline. Quite impressive to look down over the trees, but difficult to put on picture.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
We had doubts whether the Black Canyon of the Gunnison was worth the trip and our time. It was the beginning of our holiday so you don’t want to miss things but also don’t want too move to slow and spend time on less impressive parks. Second choice was whether to take the North or the South rim. Google learned us that the North rim was less touristic so that drove us to this side of the Canyon. So now, is it worth it? If this is your first Canyon and you didn’t see the Grand Canyon before, then yes, it’s worth it. Otherwise I would skip this one. We decided to hike first to Green Mountain point of which was we read you have a great view over the Canyon. Not knowing what that meant, we started our hike to the highest point. It was a very nice trail, however the views from the Green Mountain were not worth the entire hike in our opinion. When you don’t have too much time, you can limit yourself to the Exclamation viewpoint and do the Chasm view trail next to the campground. From those 2 spots your really have an impressive view on the Canyon.
Great Sand Dunes National Park
One would not expect something like the Great Sand Dunes in this area. Once you enter the Dunes, you feel in the dessert. We decided to hike the highest dune, but we didn’t enjoy it that much. It is really heavy hiking up the sand dunes, it was very warm and your shoes are quickly full of sand. You do need them as the sand can be very hot. I don’t think we will hike sand dunes any time soon. An impression of what it looks like can be found in the YouTube movie on the bottom of this page.
What might be very special is to see the sun go down in the evening or the moon and stars at night. We didn’t want to wait for that and went to a nearby camping spot. Fully isolated in the middle of nowhere, we were lucky to see the Milky Way. It is really worth spending some time in the cold outside to admire this phenomena.
Mesa Verde National Park
On our way back to Denver we decided to add a stop at Mesa Verde National Park. What we didn’t know was that you really have to ride a long distance from the entrance to the cliff dwellings. Next, although we are nature people, we are not that much interested in real history, so we were not convinced to make this effort. That’s why we decided to do a hike. We selected the Prater Ridge Trail which was roughly 20 minutes drive from the entrance. It was a surprisingly interesting and beautiful hike with special surfaces and views. Mainly the road on the opposite hill was very impressive to see.
Vail
While heading further West we stopped in Vail for a hike and a coffee. After spending a week during the yearly company teamgathering, I wanted to show this lovely city to Marie-Claire. The weather was great and plenty of people were exploring the city like us. It just has such a vibrant and cosy feeling. Together with Aspen this is one of the most famous and mondaine skiing villages of the USA.
Colorado Springs
Travelling is not only adventure, nature or exploring new kinds of food, it is also about meeting new people. And once in a while you meet some new people and it feels like you know them already for years. That’s what we experienced in the Buffalo Lodge. After 14 days of dispersed camping in our van during our road trip we were immediate attracted about their sign at the main road: pool open & happy hour. What more can you ask for to end your holiday. We had a warm welcome and enjoyed a relaxing evening at the really cool bar! A pity we were there on a Thursday evening because in the weekends there is even live music. We also did the shotski together with Torie and Katie. While having different sizes you need to adapt to each other so you can enjoy your shot. We will truly always cherish that evening.
Cheyenne Mountain State Park
A smaller State Park which we explored to do a hike after sitting for some time in the car while heading back to Denver airport. You can combine the coloured trails to the distance of your desire. We made a nice loop and luckily we had some shade as temperature was quickly rising that day. You might want to look out for mountainbikers which intensively use the trails. It didn’t bother us, but they might appear very quickly behind a corner!
Red Rock Canyon Open Space
Just outside Colorado Springs you can find the Red Rock Canyon Open Space. We had some time for a short extra hike and wanted to explore this area. Important! The describe it as a maze and it really is! We wandered around and kinda lost our direction. We planned a short 6 km hike and ended up with 13 km, which was quite a distance as we hiked earlier that day 7 km in Cheyenne Mountain State Park. You have a maze of trails going left and right and before you know you are lost. After some time we called the help of Strava to plan a route back to our car. You might want to create a route before you go exploring this nice and suprising area. It goes up and down and the trails are really fun.
Garden of the Gods
Just outside the centre of Colorado Springs you can find the Garden of the Gods. Home to a plethora of geological and ecological rarities that make the park a prime site for nature lovers says their website. It’s certainly worth some of your time to spot the different rock formations like Kissing Camels, Three Graces or the most special one: Balanced Rock (see below). You can find quite some hiking trails and although you have different parking lots nearby the point further way from each other, you can also easily do it by foot if you have some time. The total park exploration was around 12 km.
White River National Forest
Road tripping is also about getting off the beaten track in our opinion. That’s why we went to the White River National Forest. The road was aweful but the reward was great. We could see the coloured Aspen trees and also walked through a part of the forest where we saw the result of a big forest fire. Impressive to see what fire can do… On our way back we decided to walk around the reservoir but that was not the best idea. The track is crooked which makes it a real challenge to decently hike.
Impressions
