Steamboat Springs to Aspen: update on our travels

Since leaving Steamboat Springs on June 18th, our route has taken us through Granby, Grand Lake, Rocky Mt National Park, Estes Park, Boulder, Denver, Mt Evans, Breckenridge and now Aspen. These are really all mountain towns at altitudes that leave you breathless! Denver and Boulder are the lowest at around 1,700m. Our campground just north of Breckenridge overlooked Dillon Lake and was 2900m. (Our house in Calgary is at 1230m). Generally we've had lovely sunny days, but at night we're happy to have our down duvet in the van. One night we even turned the furnace on!
Downtown Boulder
Highlights include the lofty drive along Trail Ridge Rd in Rocky Mt National Park that takes you to 3713m (12,183 ft), well above tree-line and into the tundra. We loved the city of Boulder with its great parks and river running through the city centre, with rafters, kayaker and tubers having fun right downtown. The car-free Pearl Street Mall in the historic downtown has a very cool vibe. That's where I splurged and bought a great pair of shoes!
Summit of Trail Ridge Rd, Rocky Mt Park

 We've done a few of hikes and a couple of bike rides bike ride in the last week. We did another jaw-dropping drive up Mt Evans. At the top we saw mountain goats and big-horned sheep, and lots of marmots. It's amazing that there is a road all the way up to the summit. Kayaked on Dillon Lake.
Mountain goats on top of Mt Evans

Breckenridge is a very popular ski area, and it has an attractive little town with restored Victorian buildings lining Main Street. There's tons of mt biking there. We spent four nights at our pleasant campsite at nearby Dillon Lake.
                                                     Campground at Dillon Lake

 Today we have arrived at Aspen, the "ritziest" town of all. The drive here from the east took us over spectacular Independence Pass, 3690m. The panorama from there was out of this world, with wildflowers adding lots of colour.

Silky scorpion weed on Independence Pass

 Colorado has already had some wild fires,and there is a complete fire ban. But somehow in the National Forest campgrounds, you are still allowed fires in the metal pits provided. We've been enjoying our campfires.

 This morning at our "dispersed" campsite high in the mountains, we were awoken by a noise outside the van and we looked out the front window and there was a moose! He was checking out our bikes! Pretty cool. He moved off before I could get a picture of him.



       Last night's campspot
       where we had the moose
       visit in the morning

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big Plans Ahead! Another European Bike Tour

Image
 The count-down is on for our next cycle tour! On Sat Aug 24th (that is tomorrow!) we leave for yet another cycle tour in Europe. This one will see us flying to Frankfurt and riding from there south towards the Alps via Bavaria, a little part of the west of Austria (Tyrol) and on into Italy, eventually ending up in Venice. Lots of similarities to our last tour two years ago, but quite a different route. We have set aside six weeks for this journey. The main goal of this tour is to cycle a route called the Via Claudia Augusta . This route starts in Donauworth, Germany (located on the River Danube) and ends either in Venice or at the Po River south of Verona (depending which fork of the road you take). The attraction here is that it follows an old Roman road that once connected the northern part of the Empire via the River Danube, with the Adriatic Sea via the River Po or the Venetian lagoon. So there's lots of history attached to it, and it takes you through a lot of beautiful scene...
Read more

We reached the Danube!

Image
  Yesterday's ride on the last day of August will be memorable because of the village we reached halfway through the day, called Harburg. Here an impressive castle sits atop the hill, this one dating from the 11-12 th century, and said to be one of Germany's oldest castle fortifications. Hamburg and its hilltop castle We didn't climb up to the castle (these hilltop establishments are oft best viewed from afar in our opinion, especially when you're on a heavily loaded bike). Instead we stumbled on a delightful little café on the old stone bridge over the slow-moving Wornitz River where we had coffee and the most delicious pieces of homemade cake. We had quite the chat with the owners who seemed quite surprised to have Canadians on bikes in their place. Our large pieces of apple cake and plum cake Chilling in the heat of the day   Anyway the eating was followed by a good hour just relaxing in the shade under the trees along the river, resting up before hitting the ...
Read more

Complications at Reschen Pass: Italy here we come!

Image
 Monday morning Sep 9th Pfunds, at the foot of Reschen Pass, the route to Italy Before leaving home, I had read about a road closure here at Pfunds that would affect the main road, causing the diversion for traffic to use the minor road up the pass that is the official Via Claudia route for bikes. So it sounded like our bike route would not be affected, although it might have a lot of traffic. However, at breakfast this morning we learned that it's actually the cycling road that is completely closed for the building of a rockfall shed, effective Sep 1st. There is apparently an alternative signed diversion for bikes that follows a really rough gravel path. Not the best for heavily loaded bikes, although we did it over Fern Pass in good weather. Fortunately, there is a Via Claudia bike shuttle service, and we've just secured ourselves 3 spots at 12.00. This will save us a ton of hard, unpleasant riding in damp weather up the pass, and get us to the town of Nauders, several km bel...
Read more