Visiting Denver
 

My husband, adult daughter, and I will be taking a vacation in Denver in May. We enjoy hiking (no more than 5 miles at a time), sightseeing beautiful scenery, and staying active. Is 1 week long enough? Are there any specific locations where we can see the stars clearly at night? Can you recommend a location for a hotel? Can you suggest restaurants, sightseeing car rides, and things to do? Thanks!

Are you taking your vacation in Denver or Colorado? Denver is a major metro area. Things like hiking, beautiful scenery, etc., is limited in a large urban setting. The Denver metro area does have an extensive network of trails (bicycling, walking, etc.) of about 500 miles, mostly paved and separated from traffic. Since most are along drainage and creek areas, the scenery is nice and easy to control the distance you go.

However, for serious hiking and scenery you need to drive at least 25 or so into the foothills and little further for the mountains. Any of the mountain areas will give dark skies for the stars. Most of your other question would be covered in a good guidebook for Denver and/or Colorado.

Opps, that is 25 miles. Denver sits on an open plain in front of the foothills to the Rockies. You might look at a map to get a better feel for the geography. The spine of the Rockies is about 60 miles west of Denver.

May is still mud season in the mountains, though.
Not great for hiking.
Can you go later?
The summer or fall would be better.

Hi. We are limited and therefore need to go in May. Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

Ok, then there are lots of opportunities for mountain stays, and lodging should be relatively cheap. Just about any mountain town has what you are looking for.

We like Winter Park a lot, in Grand County. Devils Thumb Ranch in Tabernash is awesome. Or visit Grand Lake or Steamboat.

Or Aspen.

Or do you want to just stay in Denver?

Maybe you could start a new thread about visiting Colorado, if you're interested beyond Denver.

They already have another one I think. STAY on one.

The Denver title is misleading, though. Unless they only want to stay in Denver all week, which I don't think is the case.

You still haven't told us when you are coming. Just to give a weather update. Today, we are in the middle of an extensive snow storm. Maybe a foot in the city and considerably more in the mountains. When are you coming?

This appears to be the second of duplicate threads.

Since we are somewhat snowed in and it is a slow day. Always wonder what someone gains by posting the obvious. Like the rest of us cannot see a duplicate thread? Thanks, under, for pointing that out.

and yet <i>you</i> posted on both of the threads and almost the same things. Crazy windy here, but no snow. Slow day, indeed.

Sure, she asked two questions. Didn't want her stuck in a snow drift. Chunks of I-70 in the mountains has been closed all day.

I wrote DS that as much as I LOVE snow, I could really be annoyed with it on May 11th!! LOL

The first year we lived here (1980) the only snow day for the schools was May 9th. Still far better than the Chicago area where we came from.