I visited
Keystone, Colorado, for a weeklong
CableLabs conference in early August. I spent a day before and after the conference hiking, mountain biking and touring around. It's a beautiful part of the country!
The day I showed up there was a Blue Grass Music & Beer festival underway.
I stayed in Lakeside Village in a condo. Here is the lake:
And here is the view from my condo in the morning:
I took a few hours on two separate days to hike the Loveland Pass, on the Continental Divide. This was on the drive up to Loveland Pass.
The peak of the road through the pass is at 11,990 feet.
For info on hiking the Loveland Pass, see
this site. See
this site for some great QTVR panoramas of the Loveland Pass.
On the first day I took a short, easy hike for about 30 minutes. The second hike was on the other side and took about an hour and forty-five minutes over a mile and a half to make the summit at approximately 12,500 feet. Since I was not used to the altitude I had to stop and rest often to catch my breath.
The arrows point to the peak of my second climb to the 12,500 summit for some perspective.
Some selected pictures on and around the 12,500 foot peak.
Found a rock to hold the camera and snap a picture of myself.
I also took a few hours after meetings one day to drive to nearby Vail, Colorado.
By far the most fun I had while in Colorado was mountain biking. I rented a full suspension bike on two days for a total of about 6 or 7 hours of riding. You buy a lift pass for the day and take the ski lift up to the top of the mountain. Then you ride down along specially constructed mountain bike trails. Many of the trails were technical, singletrack. You'd often come out of the woods to a beautiful, panoramic view. Each run down the mountain can take 45 minutes - 1 1/2 hours depending upon the trails you take and your speed. Since the terrain is quite rough, you spend a lot of time out of the saddle, making for lots of work on the legs.
Here is how they hang the bike on the chair.
Some singletrack.
Me at the summit.
