Travelogue: A short hiking vacation in Colorado

I never really liked Colorado very much. That is, until we went there in early March of this year. Throughout my career, I only went there a few times for business meetings (in Denver and Colorado Springs). On those trips, I didn't see anything appealing enough for me to return. My wife and I went to Denver in 2015 for a family wedding. It was a fun wedding, but still no desire to vacation there. But when the invitation came for another family wedding in Denver, my wife and I decided to take a couple of extra days and go to Boulder with her brother and his wife.

That trip completely changed my attitude. Not only could I see making a return trip (to Boulder, that is), I'm eagerly thinking about when that might be.

Day 1 hiking in Chautauqua

In early March, there's still plenty of skiing in Colorado, at least at the hire elevations. We're not skiers. We were looking for some scenic hiking. We found plenty of it in Boulder.We rented a cabin at the Colorado Chautauqua Association. We specifically picked it because it's located right on the hiking trails for Chautauqua Park, and it's only a little more than a mile to downtown Boulder and the University of Colorado campus. (More on our lodging below.)

Shortly after arriving and having lunch, we went to the ranger station at the Chautauqua Park trail head. The ranger helpfully assessed our ability . He recommended an easy introductory hike to help us get acclimated. The route took us across a meadow, relatively flat, and then into the trees and slightly higher elevation at the foot of the Flatiron rock formations that are a distinctive feature around Boulder.

The next day, we drove a short distance to South Boulder Creek and parked at the West trail head. No ranger here to advise us. But there was a good map available and the trail is pretty well marked. This time I remembered to start the Strava app on my iPhone. (Strava maps your route and tracks statistics such as elevation gain, total distance, and heart rate if you're wearing an activity monitor.) The route we took started by following the creek through a large meadow. It was pretty flat, but the trail was quite rocky. After about 2 miles, we connected to the Mesa trail that circled a large hill. We did take one wrong turn that took us about a quarter of a mile out of the way. But we doubled back and completed the circuit of the hill. Along the way, we saw a herd of mule deer grazing on the hill above us. According to Strava, our total distance was 5.6 miles with an elevation gain of 640 feet. We reached a maximum elevation of 6115 feet.

On our last morning in Boulder, my brother-in-law and I decided to take a more challenging hike. One of the popular features of Chautauqua Park is Royal Arch. On our first hike, we saw the trail sign directing hikers to the arch. We greeted another hiker who was on his way down. He advised us that the trail was very icy and slippery. "It's a challenging hike anyway, and the icy conditions make it even more difficult," he said. But we decided to try it.

He was right. As the trail gained elevation, we encountered increasing amounts of snow and ice. Some of it had been packed by other hikers. (Some of it had been polished by hikers who felt the only safe way down was to slide on their butts.) We did see some hikers with ice crampons on their boots. In the end, we didn't make it all the way to the arch. We rested at a point in the trail with great views and decided we'd had enough. Besides, we anticipated (correctly) that the descent would be treacherous as well. Our total distance on this hike was 2.9 miles with an elevation gain of 1019 feet. Our maximum elevation was 6793 feet. Good enough.

View from 6800 feet

The final hike of our trip was on Saturday morning before the wedding. We found the Bluffs Regional Park Trail a short drive from our hotel in Englewood. It was good exercise - a 3.5 mile loop (including side trails to scenic overlooks) and a total 200 feet of elevation gain. The views of the Eastern Slope of the Rocky Mountains were nice. But it really was an urban hiking experience and nothing to compare to our hikes in Boulder.

Lodging:
In Boulder, we rented a cabin from the Colorado Chautauqua Association. As I noted above, the main appeal was proximity to the hiking trails. We had a two bedroom cabin, two bathrooms, a porch, a living room, and a kitchen. We shared it with my wife's brother, his wife, and their adult son. It was not at all luxurious, but it was quaint and comfortable and convenient. I would definitely stay there again on a future trip to Boulder.

In Denver, we stayed at the Inverness Hotel in Englewood. Compared to Chautauqua, it was big and modern and luxurious. But it isn't really the style of hotel that I generally choose for myself. It was the designated hotel for the wedding guests, and one of the pre-wedding dinners was held there. I guess the two big deals about the Inverness are the golf course (I don't golf) and the spa (we went hiking and didn't use the spa). There was one feature, however, that I did really like. Downstairs from the lobby is a pub called the Spotted Dog. It was really fun. They have good craft beer and pub food. One evening we joined several of the other wedding guests in the pub where there were pool tables, table shuffleboards, darts, and other games. It was really fun.

Dining:
I've written three posts about restaurants we ate at in Boulder - Via Perla, Brasserie Ten Ten, and Cafe Aion. All three were very good.

Chautauqua has a dining hall, and we ate there 3 times - one lunch, one breakfast, and one happy hour. The food is really quite good. They don't have an extensive menu. But you can easily find something to suit almost any preference. The meals in the dining hall are a reasonable value. They're not cheap, but also not expensive.Breakfast for two people was $26. The Happy Hour - 4 beers plus a couple of appetizer plates was $22. And, if you don't want to spend that kind of money, you can always use the kitchen in your cabin.

Happy house: Elk sausage (left), Brussels sprouts, and beer