The BLT Guidebook

Back in the spring, my name was pulled in a lottery for a backpacking permit in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). With that came a two night backpacking trip and a 5 day Colorado road trip.

Arrival

Denver is perfect for a getaway because of it’s proximity to most major cities by plane. The east coast comes in around a 4 hour non-stop, but the west coast can get there in around 2 hours. It was the perfect spot to meet up with my travel companion, Alissa, for this trip- me coming from Oakland and her coming from Houston.

Night 1: Downtown Denver

After a long airport departure and unfortunate phone navigation, we ended up at our hotel. It was in the heart of downtown- all of the tourist restaurants were right there with us. We were less than a mile walk from breweries and Coors Field (where the Colorado Rockies play).

Our first stop was near the Writer’s Square for food.

Our second stop was Union Station, where we checked out Wynkoop Brewing Company– the perfect location with the perfect atmosphere (and great beer, too!)

Day 1: Colorado Springs + Downtown Denver

Our first day was wide open- we had no concrete plans, which was abnormal for me. We added an extra night to our hotel room and day tripped out of Denver south- toward Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs is a little over an hour outside of Denver. It takes a simple highway to get there and the views itself are worth it- miles of rolling green hills and mountains in the distance. In no time, we were there seeking out Garden of the Gods. This was one of those experiences that wasn’t planned, but I am so glad we went. It definitely added to our trip. This park is essentially a “garden” of limestone rock on 1,300 acres of land! It’s worth the stop, no matter where your end destination is.

The summer afternoon showers came in when we got back to Denver. We parked at the hotel, went to dinner, and had another walk around downtown- complete with a stop at Tattered Cover, our first Colorado bookstore stop.

Day 2: Fort Collins + Boulder

The next morning, we were up and ready for the next part of our journey.

Rivers and Roads Coffee was our first stop on our way out of Denver. I would say it had the best food and coffee of the trip as a whole plus the nicest people work there.

Fort Collins and Boulder were two towns that were on my list for awhile. Fort Collins is known for it’s craft breweries (which clearly had my attention) and Boulder is mentioned in almost every outdoor podcast I listen to for various reasons. Both of the cities were unique in their own way, but they both had a lot to offer and a great vibe, much like Denver.

Fort Collins was only an hour north of Denver, adding it to the list of easy day trips. We were there for the early afternoon, walking all of the blocks and enjoying the small stores we crept into. It seemed like a pretty family-oriented place.

The hot spots we hit were Locust Cider, Old Firehouse Books, Crooked Stave, and New Belgium. While hanging out at New Belgium, we searched for a hotel outside of Boulder for our night’s stay.

After our lovely afternoon, we headed to downtown Boulder– about an hour south of Fort Collins and only 30-40 minutes from Denver. Boulder was packed with people and more upscale than I had imagined it would be. It was also filled with music everywhere. Each street corner had a band or one-person show. I had never seen anything like it. We toured the downtown strip, packed with shops, and enjoyed what this town had to offer.

The hot spots we hit were Pearl Street, where the main strip was blocked off to support outdoor dining. One of our favorite spots was the Boulder Book Store, which used to be a dance hall in the early 1900’s.

Both of these places would be perfect for a weekend getaway- filled with shopping, breweries, coffee shops, and a lot to do! My only regret is we did not squeeze in any outdoor time to see the full potential of these places.

Days 3 & 4: Grand Lake, CO + RMNP

We stayed in the Grand Lake to acclimate to the altitude before our 3 day trip into RMNP. On the park boundary sat our campground, Winding River Resort. We were definitely the odd-ones out with our lack of RV, but the bathrooms were top notch and it was an easy drive into Grand Lake. Plus, if you got up early enough, you could see the horses run first thing in the morning. Some other amenities that we did not use were their location to ATV-ing and horseback riding (and apparently they have a horse-drawn sleigh in the winter).

We spent out time in Grand Lake admiring the lake and wandering in touristy shops. With the high elevation came afternoon rain, so we mostly spent time hiding out from the sun or the rain, but we enjoyed kayaking the lake, good coffee at The Wake Coffee Shop, ice cream at the snack bar, and hiding out at Sagebrush BBQ & Grill.

The vibe in Grand Lake was the complete opposite of the other cities we visited- less young professionals, more family crowds, and I would say a more “country/cowboy” vibe.

During the early morning of Day 4, we were able to drive into the park without a permit at a certain time (due to COVID-19 many parks were providing guests with time entries into the summer of 2021 and possibly future summers as well.) The park consisted of one road that ended in Estes Park, which was supposed to be the more crowded and lively part of the park (we did not visit it during this trip.) Trail Ridge road was a narrow and windy road that linked the two sides, so we drove about half of it and stopped to enjoy the view. I was surprised at how small and easily accessibly this park was compared to Yosemite or Yellowstone.

Days 5 & 6: Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP)

The day had arrived! We drove the short distance from our campground to the visitor’s center, where we parked the car for our adventure. We worked through the 28.8 mile Continental Divide National Scenic Trail Loop, which is now re-routed due to wildfires. We started around ~8,000 feet elevation and worked our way to ~12,300 feet elevation.

*Note: The full recount of this trail will be in a future post. For now, it’s just an overview. Update: the post is here!

On our first day, we traveled briefly through a burn scar (burned surfaces from wildfires- so the fire hit the base of a tree and it’s surrounding soil and not just the top of a tree- everything in it’s path is decimated) then up into lush green forests with running water everywhere and animals such as deer and even a moose! After passing quite a few day hikers, we were alone on the mountain for our first night.

On the second day, we woke up at daybreak and started our climb in elevation- the climb itself was difficult, but once we were at the top, the elevation was consistent. At the top of the divide, we were the only ones out there for miles.

We pushed ourselves to keep going so we would be off of the mountain early. On our descend, we found that the trail was almost impassible- we hit another burn scar. This one on a slim trail with fallen trees. We were able to make our way by anxiously climbing over the fallen and blackened trees to a brief patch of greenery.

We eventually sound an open area with a campground sign and one other backpacker. We settled in, talking to our neighbor for the night, and watching a moose run around in the meadow.

Day 7: RMNP + Denver

I wanted to get an early start, so we forced ourselves out of the tent. As we were packing up, we were once again in close proximity of the moose. Luckily, it wanted nothing to do with us! The trek out was smoother than the other two days since there was no ascend or descend off the mountain. We only had about six miles to go before we were home free.

Once we were back at the car, we washed up in the Visitor’s Center bathroom and made our way back to Denver, which was ~2 hours away.

Instead of going back into downtown, I opted for an airport hotel since my flight was semi-early. Next door to the hotel was some great food options, so we stayed in for the afternoon recovering from our week’s worth of adventures!

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Have you every been to Colorado? Do you live there? What do you think is a “must see”?