We met some of Judy's friends in Crested Butte for a long weekend of skiing. After a couple of days of downhill, we decided to get a different set of muscles sore and did some cross country skiing.

Bachelor Gulch is located off of U.S. Route 40 between the town of Empire and Berthoud Pass.  Just before Rote 40 starts to switchback up to the pass there is a turn off that leads to the Henderson Mine.  Follow the paved road toward the mine until there is a well marked side road for trailhead parking.

In the summer you can continue up this road to Jones Pass which allows off-road vehicles (check with the Forest Service for details).  A much quiter route is to bear left at the fork and walk around the gate that restricts vehicle access.  The trail follows an old mining road that crosses a small stream, traverses a really pretty meadow and then ascends to above tree line and the mine ruins.  We have made it to the mine ruins in summer but generally stay below tree line in the winter.  The area makes for a really nice snowshoe outing in winter.

Boreas Pass is located between the ski town of Breckenridge and the remnants of the town of Como in South Park.  The road follows an abandoned narrow gauge rail line that used to connect the two towns.  The road can be easily traversed by passenger cars in the summer and becomes a really beautiful cross country ski trail in the winter.  There are several stands of aspen along the road which make the ride especially nice in the fall.

Our friends Pam and Andy used to own a condo not far from the trailhead for the Sally Barber Mine.  This made for some nice hiking in the summer and good snowshoeing in the winter.

Some shots from a winter hike through Castlewood Canyon State Park.

Another interesting local park is Deer Creek Canyon located on the west side of the Denver metro area.  These are some shots from a snowshoe trip through the park.

This is a nice hike that is close to Pam and Andy's new condo in Fraser.  Only one shot for now.

Shots from various hikes and some cross country skiing trips to Frisco.  The shot looking down on a highway is from Royal Mountain which is the prominent peak just west of Frisco with the highway being Interstate 70.

Various shots of Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak.

Riding on trains is always of interest so these are some shots of the Georgetown Loop Scenic Railroad.

Guanella Pass is located between Georgetown and Grant.  It provides a nice route to see some really spectacular Colorado high country.  The road is currently being improved although I'm not sure that is such a good thing.  Traffic is getting to be a bit much as it is without making the route even easier.

We met our friend Brian (Brian used to live in the Denver area but I've known him since 1976; he moved to Grand Junction a few years ago) in Leadville which bills itself as the highest incorporated city in the United States.  Besides having a nice dinner and catching up on things we hiked to the site of Douglass City and then continued on to the Haggerman tunnel.  Along the way were the blooming columbines that are the background for our main page.

On Thanksgiving wekend 2007 we headed west to Grand Junction to see Brian's new place, enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with him, a coworker and the coworkers family plus do some hikes to enjoy the area. On Thursday we hiked the "Bluffs of the Gunison Trail" which included a scenic view of a Union Pacific coal trail (don't laugh, for the Miller family trains are always scenic). On Friday we headed to an area called Bangs Canyon and, from there a quick road trip through Colorado National Monument.

If you have time when traversing Guanella Pass, the hike to Geneva Mountain is fairly easy (only about 700 ft of elevation gain) and gets you nicely away from the traffic on the Guanella Pass Road.

The local (as in within Douglas County) mountains.  Nice place to hike but it can get noisy due to various off-road vehicles.

We happenned to be crossing through Rocky Mountain National Park at sunset.

My family doesn't live too far from the old canal town of Roscoe Village located near Coshocton, Ohio.  We made the trip over during one of our visits to my family to see the quaint buildings, etc.

Roxborough State Park is another really convenient place to get out and enjoy nature.  We don't get there as often as we used to since Vida isn't welcome.

We made a quick weekend trip to Crestone, CO on the weekend of 1 March 2008. The pictures of the Sangre de Cristo mountains are the view out the front door of the B&B we stayed at. The sunsets are the view looking the other direction. The San Juan mountains as barely visible as the horizon in these pictures.

The drive down on Saturday the first was fantastic. It took us about three and a half hours door-to-door. The drive back on Sunday the second was another matter. We left in light snowfall that got progressively worse as we went up Poncha Pass (9,010 ft). It got to the point that we had to make a couple of stops to scrape the windshield since the wipers couldn't keep up. Once we got down into the Arkansas River valley the weather got better but then we hit some equally nasty weather just north of Colorado Springs. Five hours for the return trip.