TRAPPER’S LAKE TO WINTER PARK…
Tue July 25th:
Trapper’s Lake to Winter Park, CO (226 mi~8-9 hrs) (Hotel)
So not starting on schedule, due to stopping early at Trapper’s Lake, and not realizing how far we put ourselves behind. We rolled out looking for the overlook to get a picture of Trapper’s Lake, and got all twisted around before realizing the road to the overlook went right past our campground, but we had already driven back out to the Lodge.
So back up the mountain we went to get only a glimpse of Trapper’s Lake, as it was a parking area that then required a mile long hike to gather in all of the beauty of Trapper’s Lake.
I wasn’t up for a mile long hike, and I was certain Mandi’s new knees weren’t either. So we settled for our glimpse and headed back down 4,000 ft in elevation to turn right back around and drive up to 12,000 ft the views were insane.
I once again had to stop to cool things down, so we took the opportunity to make lunch while we waited for my temps to come down. Then it was up a little higher, down and up and down finally finding pavement close to Yampa.
Here we made a fuel stop and gauged our arrival in Winter Park to maybe be around 6 ish. But then I missed a couple of turns and we were back on a gravel road shortcut just after a nice rain shower.
It was nice driving with no dust and the gravel road turned into and interesting trail, that everyone was happy about.
We finally arrived in Winter Park, checked into our rooms and then took in some local eats at a place called Deno’s Mountain Bistro it sounded quaint but the prices were crazy being a bistro in a ski resort.
So we took the advice of our server and ordered a tri-tip appetizer, which made us all spend way more than we intended on some of the best steak we’d ever had. Then we got even sillier and topped it off with dessert, before heading back to the hotel for showers and sleep…
But change was in the air, as Doug had a wheel crack on today’s trail so he needed to find a wheel for a spare, and nobody was excited about the rock crawling we had originally planned, especially with temps in the upper 80’s and 90’s.
So I took the liberty of re-routing the remainder of our trip, to allow for us to get some laundry done while Doug looked for a wheel in the morning…
Our Route:
