Winter Park Family Trip

We met my parents and Diddiwah clan in Winter Park -- actually, Fraser -- for a few days of hiking and cycling in the mountains. We rented a nice cabin, with plenty of room for all of us, right on the edge of the Arapaho National Forest. 

We brought our big black tandem and our four single mountain bikes along with four days of clothes and gear, which nearly exceeded the capacity of our little truck bed. Amos ended up on the floor at the kids' feet in the rear of the cab, since the guitars and pillows took up all the space on the seat between them.

The first evening we were in Winter Park, we followed the Fraser River Trail from Winter Park's downtown area up to the ski resort. The trail hugs the Fraser River, passing through cool forest along the edge of the mountains. 

The next day we left the bicycles in the garage at the house, and drove up a tremendously bumpy gravel road to the Columbine Lake Trailhead, several miles north of Fraser. We brought along some lunch, but, thinking that we were going to be walking for about three hours, we left the lunch in the trucks at the trailhead, and planned to eat it when we got back. Well, we did eat it when we got back, but it was six hours later, not three! PB&J and potato chips never tasted so good! The scenery around the trail was magnificent, as the trail followed a valley up into the rocky cliffs of the Continental Divide that border Columbine Lake. The trail was steep, and became steeper and rocky as we ascended to the lake. It was a very nice way to spend the day. Too bad I didn't take any pics at the lake!

Amos and Utah came along for the walk, and were nicely worn out afterwards.

On the third day, we pulled out the bikes and rode the Fraser Granby Trail. It was a warm day, and some portions of the trail were quite exposed to the sun. The trail surface was gravel and dirt, and it certainly wasn't completely flat, so we road about 10 miles and then turned back.

 

Shade!!

I didn't get any exteriour pictures of our cabin in Fraser, but the photo below was taken from the driveway. Our cabin was similar to those in the picture. The road up to the cabin was steep. Cindy and Quinn had been riding down the trail behind the cabin, and up the road back to the house.

We got in a little mountain biking on the trails outside of Fraser, too. The photo below was taken near the upper end of Creekside Trail. Grandma and Grandpa were walking down to the creek not too far away with Cailan.

Right behind the cabin was a serious of trails called the Idlewild Trails, which were very convenient for getting in a quick ride or run. Why can't we just live up there?

By Sunday morning our short stay was over and we all had to say goodbye. We also said goodbye to Quinn and went home without him! Quinn was starting camp on Sunday at Snow Mountain Ranch, a YMCA camp just outside of Winter Park. We were pretty worried about leaving him there, but we picked up a week later, and it was quite apparent that he'd had a wonderful time. 

Cherry Creek Loop

On Sunday, July 15, we did a fairly lengthy local ride with my parents. This time we stuck to pavement, so we broke out our Burley road tandems. This made it a three-Burley tandem road ride. It was really fun and ended up being about 26 miles of rather hilly riding. We followed my route to work, going north from our house to the north end of the Denver Tech Center, then went east past Cherry Creek High School, where Abbey and Quinn will most likely go to high school, and then all the way around Cherry Creek Reservoir, back through DTC, and home again.

It went quite well, except for one detail: We crossed Interstate 25, not too far from my office, using a pedestrian overpass which has elevators at either end. I used the elevators much of the time when I commute to and from work and a single bike fits fine. The tandems barely fit into the elevator, and apparently when Cindy and Quinn's little tandem went in, we pressed the fender against the rear tire. Consequently, they did several miles of riding with a drag brake on their rear wheel! My mom even commented once, after a steep downhill, that she thought she'd smelled burning rubber. Once we had the fender off the tire, Cindy and Quinn were a whole lot faster!

Alas, I took no pictures, so this text and a few fuzzy memories are all I've got.

On Monday morning, the grandparents loaded their bikes into their van and drove to GJ and I went back to work. A few days later, we met them in Winter Park for more family adventures. I'll post some of that soon.

In the Mountains with Grandparents

My parents arrived at our house on the evening of July 12. That happened to be only three days after our furniture arrived. It took North American Vine Lines three weeks to get our stuff from Michigan to Colorado.

For our first adventure, on Friday the 13th, we set out from our house to ride some of the trails near our house in Centennial. We rode almost 20 miles of mixed paved and gravel trails, with a little bit of road thrown in just to make some connections. It was a nice ride, but it was a little hot. I think our Kansas relatives probably felt the elevation on all those hills, too.

We rode our mountain tandems since we knew we'd be riding some gravel. Grandma and Grandpa were on their Burley Rock 'n Roll, which has wide road tires and is really ideal for this sort of riding. Riding three tandems, I don't think we went unnoticed, but somehow I failed to get any pictures. Perhaps my mom snapped some that she could send us; we could post them here.

On Saturday the 14th, we made the drive out to Mt. Falcon Park in mountains just west of Denver. We came in from the west (upper) side so that we could explore the trails on the wide, flat ridge at the top of the park without having to walk up 1500 ft to get there. I got a few pictures of this one:

We had a really nice picnic lunch at the top of the park. The sun was warm, but there a light breeze to keep us cool, the view from the top, which is not all visible in the picture above, was spectacular.

After lunch, we made the short drive over to Alderfer Three Sisters Park to scramble around on the rocks. That was quite a bit of fun too.

Later that day, we met Bob and BJ for dinner at a restaurant not too far from our house. It was a long fun day.

Alderfer Three Sisters 7

On July 7 we met the Heather, Chris, and Cailan for some riding at Alderfer Three Sisters, one of our favorite local parks. We had nice ride around our usual perimeter route -- I guess we can call it "usual" at this point, since we've been there a few times. Chris and Cailan rode the big yellow tandem, and together they tackled some impressive climbs and rocky obstacles. It's a wonder they survived! Heather was testing a Yeti on this ride, since her Santa Cruz was undergoing a fork rebuild or possible transplant.

The park has some great trails. One of our trail segments is the northern loop of the Mountain Muhly Trail, especially when ridden clockwise. Here Abbey descends a little rocky sidewalk on the MMT.

After doing the big loop as a group of seven, we split up so Chris and I could ride the Evergreen Loop a bit faster than he could do it with Cailan on the BYT. We met the rest of the group later at the west parking lot where they were climbing around the big rock pile.

This could be a link to our route: Click here!

Just Twelve Feet

Today we had this weird idea to leave the bikes at home and go for a walk in the foothills near Denver. We felt badly about leaving Amos home alone again, and some of us had tired legs from the ride the previous day, so we decided that walking would be a nice alternative. We chose the Dakota Ridge/Red Rocks/Matthews Winters loop, which I had ridden a few months ago (here's a link to that one).

It was a 6 1/2 mile loop, which was longer than any we've done before as four humans and one dog, all walking independently. This was certainly the furthest Quinn had ever walked, and was possibly a record for Abbey, as well. Both of them did very well, and seemed to have a great time. Amos liked it, too. Click here to see a map of our route.

The Dakota Ridge Trail is on top of Dinosaur Ridge, one of the hogback ridges that runs north-south just west of Denver. It's a rugged trail with nice scenery, but just little more exposure than I like in a few sections, especially with the kids along. The exposure, scenery, and rugged terrain made it fun by adding an element of adventure.

It was hot in the sun on the ridge and as we approached the southern end of the ridge trail, I was getting concerned that Amos might get too hot. He was panting hard, and plopping down on the rocks whenever we stopped near a patch of shade. We kept him well hydrated by letting him drink from our CamelBaks, a trick he learned quickly when we were in Crested Butte a few years ago. He can lap up a falling stream of water without losing a drop. Sometimes, anyway. After a stop in the shade for about 15 minutes, he seemed to be doing fine, so we finished the Dakota Ridge trail and started back on the Red Rocks Trail.

Just as we started up the Red Rocks trail, a nice reprieve from the heat drifted across us from the mountains to the west. It came in the form of big puffy clouds, with gray smears of rain hanging below like curtains. The rain that fell on us stayed light, so it kept us cool. It was quite pleasant, and seemed to cool Amos, too.

There's one great slab of sandstone beside the trail that appeared to be open to a little exploration, so the kids and Amos went up for sit. After that it was back to the car and back home for lunch.

Sitting here at the little table in our kitchen (the only seats in the house, since our furniture is still in Michigan), I'm feeling really good about our weekend adventures. We all had fun, got a little tired and sore, and we are all ready to get to bed early.