Colorado June 2019

Dates: June 26 - July 1, 2019

People: Mark

Itinerary

• 6-26 (Travel Day)

• 6-27 (CO Trail Hike Day)

• 6-28 (Mt. Antero/Mt. White)

• 6-29 (Buffalo Peaks)

• 6-30 (Mt. Hope)

• 7-1 (CO Trail Hike Day / Travel)

WEDNESDAY JUNE 26

My flight left Detroit on time with no issue.  We arrived in Denver 25 minutes early.  I had aspirations of catching the 6:30p Epic Mountain Express shuttle.  My bags came reasonably quick but it was 6:40p when I got to the pickup area and they were gone.  On that note, Epic Mountain Express Shuttle was great to work with.  $35 fare plus I gave a $4.80 tip.  I did mobile check-in with them which involved them sending me a text when I arrived in Denver, once I had my bags I would click the link in the text, they would then consider me checked in.  20 minutes later they texted and gave me the exact # of my shuttle van and instructions to be at the pickup area 10 minutes early.  They were doing pickups at Door 504 near Baggage Claim 17.  The first island has a label for "Mountain Carrier".

The terminal was under construction so almost no food was open.  Options were Subway or The Cantina.  I was in the mood for nachos so I tried the cantina.  Came out a bit like Qdoba.  At 7:50 I was at the curb waiting for my shuttle with about a dozen other people.  It showed up about 7:55 and she boarded us and our luggage.  We waited til 8:05p for one more passenger and we had a no show.  We then headed out.  She has passengers for Dillon, Frisco and Breck.  We did stop briefly in Dillon to drop two passengers to another transfer van.  Then we were off to Frisco.  We made it there at 10:10p which was about 10 minutes late. Some of that is attributable to Denver traffic.  Mom/Dad grabbed me and we headed out to BV in the Explorer.

THURSDAY JUNE 27

I was up at 6:30am since my body was mostly on Eastern time still.  This meant only about 5-5.5 hours of sleep.  That's how vacation goes.  Mom was kind enough to be up early as well and make a sausage and eggs breakfast for Dad and I.  We got our daypacks readied up for our hike and it was shortly after 8am when we left for the Three Elk trailhead which was a fairly short drive away.

Colorado Trail - Three Elk to Silver Creek

My mother picked us up at the end of the hike and we headed into downtown BV to have lunch at Biggie's, a delightful little sandwich shop.  I tried their 6" italian sub and it was great.  The three of us shared a small fries which was huge and more than enough for all of us.

At 2:30p my father and I left the house to head over to Antero Reservoir to kayak. 

Antero Reservoir Kayaking

 Upon returning to the house my Dad set about grilling pork chops for supper.  We also had season potatoes and green beans, it was a great meal.  We talked to Sarah and Anya on video chat as we finished supper.  After a long past two days I didn't stay up late and was in bed by 10 to get some sleep.

FRIDAY JUNE 28

We were up plenty early today to get going on a big hike. We set a target of leaving the house at 4:30am and so I was up at 4 to get going.  We had a 30 minute drive down to the Brown's Creek trailhead.  I had a banana and a granola bar for breakfast to get going.

Mt. Antero + Mt. White via Little Brown's Creek

Upon getting back to the house from our big hike it was pretty much rest and relax the afternoon away.  I put in 17.5 miles on the trail with over 6000 feet elevation. A full day on a small amount of sleep.  We picked up pizza from Elkhorn Pizzeria in BV just after 6p and my brother David arrived from Denver just before 7p.  

SATURDAY JUNE 29

We set our sights on the Buffalo Peaks today.  We were up at 5am to get going.  I had a typical banana and fruit and granola bar breakfast.  David, Dad and I hit the road about 5:40am to get to the trailhead.

West + East Buffalo Peaks

It was almost 4:30p when we returned to the house.  We were pretty tired.  Me especially from two long days on the trail.  We grilled hamburgers for supper.  I think I was somewhat zombie like all evening just being exhausted.  

SUNDAY JUNE 30

David and I were up at 5am today to get the early sunrise start on the trail.  We knew today wouldn't be as long as the previous days but we're so used to the early starts that it seemed the right move.

Mt. Hope

We were back to BV by just after noon.  We did lunch at Eddyline Brewery.  I had the spicy buffalo wings and a Jolly Roger Black Ale, so a happy tummy.  We did a driving tour of the Game Trail neighborhood after lunch and then drove up the North Cottonwood county road.  On the return we stopped at the Silver Creek trailhead and were amazed how heavy the creek flow is right now with all the snow melt.

MONDAY JULy 1

This was my last day our in Colorado, but not one to be wasted.  When setting up flights I was able to get an 8pm flight out of Denver allowing for one more day of hiking.  The downside was my arrival home was at 12:30am but it was worth it.  We didn't have to leave for Frisco to get the shuttle to Denver until about 2:30pm so we had plenty of time for a good morning hike.  David had already headed into Denver the night before with him having something like a 6:00am flight today.

We slept in a little bit this morning which meant I was up just a bit before 7am.  I got most everything packed up knowing that after the hike the time would likely be short.

Colorado Trail - Brown's Creek to Chalk Creek

After the hike we headed into BV and ate at Biggie's again.  I tried the gyro this time.  The meat and pita were great, but they put just a bit too much sauce on it.  We were back to the house about 1:45pm leaving enough time for me to shower and gather all my things up.

As we tried to leave at 2:15p the Explorer was giving us startup issues.  Perfect timing of course.  About 10 minutes later we got that resolved and were on our way to Frisco.  During the drive it was amazing to see the avalanche fallout from the winter/spring snows along the highways.  It was particularly interesting seeing all the avalanche chutes along the Tenmile range between Copper and Frisco.

We got into Frisco early at 3:40p and had to wait about 20 minutes til the shuttle arrived.  4:05p the shuttle arrives, I check-in, get my bag loaded and hop on. We hit the road at 4:15p right on time.  I rode Epic Mountain Express once more and they provided good service both to and from Denver on this trip.  We fought heavy traffic getting into Denver and to the airport but still made it to the airport at 6:20p, only about 5 minutes after the promised time.

Security was pretty slow as they were still working on half of the terminal and had it shut down.  After security I rode the train  into Concourse B, found the Chick-fil-A, and then took my food out to Concourse C to eat and wait for my flight.

We got out on time and made it into Detroit pretty much on time.  The ground crews at DTW were slow and unprepared however, so we sat just outside our gate for like 20 minutes.  The plane got so warm and everyone at that late hour, about 1am, got pretty restless.