Colorado in the summer!
 

Hello! I've just discovered these forum and got such wonderful responses from a previous post. To anyone reading and responding, thank you in advance for taking the time. I promise to return the favor when I return!

​I have been searching the information here on the boards, and wanted to get some opinions from experts here regarding a summer trip to Colorado. I have some parameters based on the previous posts here, and would love to hear your opinion on where to stay over night, hotels/resorts, companies to use for rafting, and sites to see. I'm so excited to see what you might say!

Here are some of our parameters/details:

Family of four, two young teens.

We are flying in and out of Denver and renting a car.

We are staying 5 or 6 nights. We'd like to stay at least 2 nights in each location. (so for five nights 2/3 or for six nights 2/2/2 or 3/3). We don't like to go to a new place each night.​

We don't like to drive more than 2.5 hours in between days - the shorter the drive, the better actually. We are okay with not seeing everything in the state! Just want to have a nice relaxing time.

We want to raft and buena vista seems like a good spot, although I'm not sure we want to stay there. Opinions? Other places to raft Class II and III?

We are traveling in late July.

We want to do great hikes, visit cool little towns, and have really nice mountain views from hotels.

We've heard Breckenridge could be a great place to stay for a couple of nights? If so, we'd like to stay close to restaurants. Any street recommendations?

Thanks everyone in advance! Any recommendations for trip itinerary are welcome!
Rosebud

Frisco is a cute little town with great restaurants and such, and you can visit a number of places nearby.
I don't think there will be much in the way of rafting that late.
I would think you would like to see Rocky Mountain National Park in that time frame.
Stay in Estes Park for the first 2 days and explore that.
Then maybe go to the Aspen area for a few days.

On the way back you might spend a night in Leadville.

Leadville is a very cool little town. It's actually the highest incorporated town in the lower 48, at over 10,000 ft. The only drawback is you can have trouble sleeping at night because of the elevation. We were there in the summer during the rodeo - so you might check out when it runs. The hiking we've done out of Leadville was up to a 14er, not sure you want to tackle that with 2 teenagers?

Rocky Mountain National Park is a must and you definitely want to stay on the east side of the park in Estes Park. The scenery and hiking is much better. Lots of trails to choose from, but these are some of the top trails in the park:

http://www.rockymountainhikingtrails...p-10-hikes.htm

Make sure you make the drive across Trail Ridge Road and plan on at least half a day exploring the views and even doing some short trails. The Ute Trail and the Tundra Communities Trail are both short, but at that elevation you'll be breathless!

As far as accommodations, try not to get anything in the heart of town as traffic and congestion can be bad in the summer. We like to stay out Fall River Road at the Woodlands. Although it doesn't have mountain views, your deck is right over the river and it's a very nice setting.

Thank you Wave725 and Gretchen! Should we try to do Pikes Peak train?

I like Estes and RMNP. The hike to Sky Pond, which goes by The Loch, is fantastic hike. I would have a meal in The Stanley Hotel.

Class II rafting isn't very much. Would have been boring for my now older teen.

You kids would likely enjoy an Alpine Slide. There are several in the state(I think).
You might look at Segway tours as well.

For six nights the loop Denver -> Estes -> Grand Lake -> Summit County or Leadville -> Denver is a classic. I've sent many out of town co-workers on that route (in either direction) with 100% rave reviews.

Aspen is superb but does add a few extra hours of driving. You could do it via I-70 and Glenwood Springs, return via Independence Pass. Your call on the driving time.

All of the hikes listed in wave725's RMNP link are fantastic.

I'd skip the Pikes Peak train. You can drive up Mount Evans and get to 14,000' that way. Evans is a more impressive summit.

Have a great trip.

Went on a supposed Class 3 rapids trip - outside of Vail - the Missouri river was it? - in the later part of the summer. Class 3 my axx - more like one and a half. So much depends on the level of the water/flow in the river.

When I later went river rafting in Costa Rica - they had some REAL Class 3 and 4 rapids. :)

Do the Mt. Evans as suggested rather than Pike's Peak. The latter is sort of off your best route.

Sounds like a great plan! I'm going to go ahead and create an itinerary that includes Estes, Grand Lake, Leadville and rafting out of Buena Vista. We'll probably stay at Estes and Leadville with the others being trips along the way or day trips. (We;ll hit Grand Lake on the way to Leadville...maybe Frisco for Lunch). We'll definitely do Mr. Evans instead of Pikes Peak.

I still want to add rafting. We are going to probably do a full day Browns Canyon. Although now based on these recommendations we may base in Leadville and just drive to Buena Vista for the trip. Looks like it's only 45 minutes away.

How do you recommend driving from Estes to Grand Lake? Or visa versa? By google maps it looks like they take me back by Denver. Is that the right way, or can we go around? It looks like there is a Route 34, but Google is not even allowing me to drag the route there! Is it closed? It's probably just a fluke.

The only wildcard is Aspen, but I might just see how the itinerary shakes out first.

Finally, now that I have some places to stay. Any lodging recommendations? We'll have a car but love to walk to things. We don't live in an area where you can walk to restaurants and town, so we love to do so on vacation.

As always, many thanks!

Highway 34 between Estes and Grand Lake is Trail Ridge Road, one of the most spectacular alpine drives in the western US. It is typically open from late-May through sometime in October. The road is closed now, but that is your route.

For lodging, the last couple of times my wife and I stayed in Breck, should you wind up there, we used the Wedgewood Lodge. Decent location and reasonably priced. The walk is just a few blocks to town and they have free underground parking.

Our last time in Aspen, if you go there, we used the Molly Gibson Lodge, which we liked, once again, for its great location and reasonable prices.

As you can tell, we are cheap SOBs! But both are quite nice, well situated, and great value. Lots of decent options in both towns.

Can't help you with Leadville or Estes as we've generally stayed at friend's places when there.

Thank you, Nelson!

I would really play the raft trip by ear--see what the water is like when you get there. it could be a float trip, which is fine if that is what you want.

The quality of rafting late in July is related to water flow. The peak of the rafting season is roughly mid May to mid/late June. It actually becomes more dangerous later in the season because the lower water levels exposes more rocks. However, the probability of a longer season this year is much greater. The snowpack report yesterday indicated that the central mountains drainage basins are all over 100% of average. Most unusual this early in winter. Obviously it could quit snowing next week but the probability of an above average snowpack this year is very high. But - (and there is always a but) an early, hot spring could have a negative impact. The Brown's canyon trips are about the best in the state. There are several companies running in the canyon. Have used a couple of them and didn't notice any difference.

Good luck.

I'm bookmarking because I'm interested too.

I always recommend Aspen. It has everything you want. River rafting there is good, as is fishing, hiking, sightseeing, shopping (expensive), horseback riding, music concerts, art affairs, etc.

The drive from DIA would probably be about 5 hours, but you could break it up with a night in Vail or Summit County.

Personally, I'd go the 5 hours, to get there and stay there. You could drive over Independence Pass on your way back to Denver, and go through Leadville (which isn't a big deal, IMHO).

We like staying at The Gant, a condo-hotel, which is easy walking distance into Aspen proper, and has a free shuttle service, also.

Wow-- late July is expensive in Aspen. The Gant's cheapest rate is $667/night, and Aspen Square is sold out. Something must be going on there. I just plugged in random dates around July 17- July 23.

Food and Wine week? Music festival?--any number of things going on in the Colorado mountains all summer long.
Wow, good news about the snow pack!!

Gretchen, news just reported another 32" of snow in Winter Park. It's snowed all day in Denver today, too.

Snow pack will mean no water restrictions, and great runoff for rafting. Everybody wins!

Our son said it snowed like 2 feet somewhere in the mountains last week. That is SUCH good news for Colorado--people think it is only for skiers!!
Rafting still..... stay tuned. We can hope. I only say that because people think it is just "there" all the time because it is the "mountains". 'o)

Hi Rosebud. Please look for the post under my name. We did the same trip last year and had a wonderful time thanks to the advice of the folks on this forum. I never posted a trip report but here is what we did. After flying into Denver and picking up our van we headed straight to Boulder for lunch at the Med. We then drove up Boulder canyon to the peak to peak hwy and stopped at St. Malo's before arriving at our rental in Estes. We found a lovely home overlooking Mary's Lake via VRBO. There is a lodge at Mary's lake that looked very nice as well with a pool for the kids. I liked the location as we were not in the middle of town and never encountered traffic getting to the park. From Estes we did a rafting trip with Wanderlust rafting. They are about a 1.5 hour scenic ride thru Big Thompson canyon thru Ft. Collins . After the trip we stopped at Ft. Collins for lunch. There is a cute downtown area with shops and lots of choices for lunch.
On one of the days , One of the hikes we tried from this end was the one to lake Haiyaha. This was by far the most picturesque lake I have hiked to. I could have stayed there for hours.
The other hike we did was to the pool via Fern lake trail.
For the second half of our trip we went to Grand Lake. We rented a cabin at Grand Lake Lodge. We absolutely loved this place. Please check it out. I would return there in a heartbeat. There is not as much to do but we were able to fill our days. We rented a boat one day and rode around the lake. Another day we went zip lining while the younger kids has an archery lesson at Devils Thumb Ranch. Though we visited devils thumb as a day trip you could check out staying there as we'll. They have cabins and rent rooms in the hotel. This place was gorgeous. The town of Grand Lake itself is also interesting for a few days. Lots of little stores to check out, jet skis to rent, etc. Grand Lake is very rustic and laid back, but like I said we loved it and would love to go back.
Hope you enjoy your trip. You'll find there is simply not enough time to do everything.