Snow Adventures in Colorado

It wasn’t all running in Colorado. Obviously we had to go skiing. Ben found discount lift tickets for Copper Mountain through Entertainment book ($79 vs $150 at the window). I’ve skied at Copper before, and I love this ski resort. It has a ton of trails, and several looong runs. There snow was much better this year than 5 years ago, when a drought in CO meant there was precious little powder and it was mostly ice. I hadn’t gone skiing since then, so the first few runs were rough. We had a fun day of exploring the various trails and ended the day with apres-ski drinks at the bar.

On MLK Day, we went to Rocky Mountain National Park to go snowshoeing. Normally it’s $20 to go in, but because it was a national holiday, the fee was waived. We rented snowshoes for $5 at Estes Park Mountain Shop. The shop gave us recommendations for where to go for wildlife sightings. We took off for Fern Lake to find elk. Other snowshoers who were out on the trail earlier told us that there was a giant male elk by the trail, but unfortunately the elk disappeared into the woods before we ever found him. We did see a large herd of elk by the side of the road as we drove out of the park. We did find an elephant by the trail! Someone made a lovely snow elephant. It was incredibly well-done complete with wrinkles on the trunk and tree branch trunks. The tip of the trunk was curled up and holding a bit of bark. We hiked almost six miles.The snow trail was pretty well packed, so Ben never bothered to use the snowshoes. I’m clumsier and prone to slipping, so I used my snowshoes. Rocky Mountain National Park is majestic. The views took our breaths away as we tramped along.

We also went to Red Rock Amphitheater one afternoon. It would be difficult to find anyone who would say that Red Rock Amphitheater isn’t one of, if not the greatest, outdoor concert spaces. The awe-inspiring red rocks jutting up into the wide-open sky is an incredible backdrop to the many concerts that they have. It’s free to visit when there’s no event going on. When we visited Boulder last summer, I had hoped to see something at the Red Rock Amphitheater, but they didn’t have anything that we would have been interested in. One day . . .

That’s it for our adventures in Colorado.  We’re now in Texas for the 3M Half Marathon this weekend.