What to do in Boulder if you have a bike

I know we're not in Boulder anymore but I've been working on this one for a while. And hey, a girl can dream can't she?

Any cyclist will tell you that the biking in Boulder is awesome. But when we first got here, that was all we knew. Like many sports in Colorado, there are so many awesome options that it's hard to get specific suggestions when you ask people for good routes. Here are a few of our favorites. For consistency's sake they all start from the corner of Baseline and Broadway and you can assume that for the vast majority of each ride you will have a bike lane/wide shoulder and relatively minimal traffic (car, that is).

Flat Rides

1. Neva Road Loop





2. Baseline Loop





3. Hygiene Loop

This is a nice, relatively flat longer ride around the Boulder area. It rolls through farmland north of Boulder with great views of the flatirons and foothills. At the turn onto 75th (around mile 18) you can instead go left and you will immediately find yourself in the charming little town of Hygiene.





Climbs:

4. Ward

This is something like the must do climb in Boulder. The first time that we did it, we did the first route shown below as an out and back. We had camped in Meadow Park in Lyons the night before. (The campsite was great. Right on the St. Vrain river, real bathrooms, and low altitude so it was great for early summer camping when the mountains were still cold and snowy). This climb is 25 miles completely uphill and took us about 3 hrs. When we got to the top, we ate our weight in cheesy pizza and desert at the first restaurant we saw (and I'm pretty sure the only one in town) before enjoying a beautiful 45 minute pedal-less descent down the way we had come. (I couldn't believe all the beautiful scenery I had missed while cursing the pavement on the way up.)




Another way to get to Ward is up Lefthand Canyon Drive. This route is shorter and more convenient when you're leaving from Boulder. The road ends at a cute little general store where you can buy snacks and drinks to refuel for the not nearly as strenuous descent.





5. Jamestown

If you start up Lefthand with dreams of Ward but 20 minutes later decide that today may not be the day to realize that dream, take a right on James Canyon Drive and head up to Jamestown instead. If you get there before 2:00, you can even stop in town for a home-cooked breakfast. If you get there after 2:00, you absolutely cannot. There is one restaurant in this "town" and we found out when we got there at 2:15 that it stops serving at 2:00.





6. Flagstaff

Flagstaff is also a must-do Boulder climb, although not nearly as much of a time commitment as a climb to Ward is, this one is short but very steep. The whole thing only takes 45 minutes to an hour and can be done before work as a quick but intense morning workout. You can take a right at Flagstaff Summit Road and continue till the end if you want to add a little more mileage.






Epic (coming soon)

8. Tour de cute towns (Just a little all day ride that Michelle and I cooked up. Mostly an excuse to eat 5 meals in a day)

9. Carter Lake

10. Mt. Evans

Road Trip: Boulder to Los Angeles

Unfortunately, my road trip last week went the wrong direction - back to smog central for my last year of college (whaaat????). Katie flew home from Denver, but luckily my friend, Taylor, from USC flew out from LA and drove back with me so I didn't have to brave the open road alone. I didn't get enough good video footage to put anything legitimate together, but here are the highlights:

Leadville was the first stop on the morning we left. We had breakfast at Tennessee Pass, a charming little cafe on Harrison Ave. Go. Get the breakfast sandwich on toast. It also happened to be two days before the Leadville Trail 100 ultramarathon, so we even got to chat it up with some crazy ultrarunners.

We drove for a while and ended up in Durango next. Honestly, I was dissapointed. It's a cowboy town in Southern Colorado, and while I'm sure the outdoors opportunities there are fantastic, the historic downtown area was just really touristy and overpriced.

Unsatisfied, we hit the road and made it to the Four Corners. Yeah, it's a very figurative man-made monument, but it's just kind of neat. It was worth a visit.

Monument Valley, UT

Next we headed to Monument Valley, Utah. Actually, we stopped in Kayenta, AZ and looked for a hotel because it was raining and we'd just driven through a lightning storm in the twilight zone for three hours, but the cheapest one was $169, a scary guy tried to sell me native american jewelery six inches from my face in the supermarket parking lot, and an exceptionally sketchy woman in a pickup truck offered me a room at her "private bed and breakfast in her private home," which I politely declined. Anyway, it didn't seem like the kind of place I wanted to spend the night, so we pitched my tent in the dark at Goulding's Campground in Monument Valley. We didn't even realize there were huge rocks around us until we woke up in the morning.

Grand Canyon

After admiring the big rocks at sunrise, we went to the Blue Coffee Pot diner in Kayenta. I'll be kind and say it was mediocre. I will give it this, though - it's cheap. Back on the road, we drove straight to the Grand Canyon (thank you, annual National Parks pass!). It was pretty much was I expected - a huge hole. I think it would've been cool to walk down in it, but we were only there for a day so we just walked around for a few hours. Pretty awesome.

Sunburt and tired, we drove to Needles, CA, where we got dinner (breakfast, actually) at the Wagon Wheel Cafe. It was SO good. SO good. We planned to camp at Lake Havasu, so we drove down there, but it was literally over 100 degrees and it was 8:30pm. Knowing we wouldn't be able to sleep and not willing to pay for a hotel, I filled up Gladys's tank and drove through the night to LA.

And here I am.

Impressions from the road trip:

• Everyone should drive through northern Arizona at some point to understand what complete poverty and desolation really is. 
• The Wagon Wheel Cafe in Needles is freaking delicious.
• Leadville is pretty sweet.
• Havasu is hot.
  

Weekend in Rocky Mountain National Park

Boulder and the surrounding area seems to be very secretive about camping spots. Without any insider information about the hidden gems, back in April I made plans to take a backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. Aside from the administrative hassles you have to deal with when you're working with the National Park Service - permit reservations, processing fees, required bear canister, apparently having to pick up your permit by 10am (oops! we lucked out with our late arrival this time) - backpacking in Rocky Mountain is pretty awesome.

We planned to start at Bear Lake and hike about 5 miles down to Odessa Lake on Friday night, but the ranger told us that this year's record snowfall made it difficult to get through. So instead, we parked Gladys at the Fern Lake trailhead.

Day 1 Route

There was some snowpack when we got up closer to the lake, which sits at just over 10,000 feet, but the hike wasn't overly strenuous, even in the drizzly weather. It's hard to get a permit for Odessa Lake - when I reserved back in April, every Saturday night for the entire summer was booked. But it was worth it to have one of just two sites situated right next to the beautiful alpine lake, with a stunning view of Notchtop Mountain reflecting off the water.



View of Odessa Lake from the site, Notchtop Mtn to the right



It was a chilly night, but very comfortable for sleeping in a tent with a good sleeping pad and bag (mine is rated for 30F, and I was toasty). After cooking some breakfast on my trusty MSR Superfly, we hit the trail. Against the advice of the [overly cautious] ranger at the backcountry office, we decided to try for Bear Lake, or at least Lake Helene. About halfway to Lake Helene, we had crossed a couple of wide snow fields, and we ran into another hiker who came down from Bear Lake. The former park ranger warned us of one snow field and a dangerous chute between us and Lake Helene.



Day 2 route



It turns out the chute was pretty dangerous. We walked across a very steep slope of soft snow. As I approached a tree in the middle, I was just getting my right foot on the trunk when my left foot sunk into the snow. It took a minute of assessment with one leg above my head and most of my body buried under the huge drift, but I managed to scoot myself up and hurry across the rest of the chute, avoiding death. The rest of the hike to Lake Helene was pretty easy and uneventful, although we managed to lose the trail in the snow a few times.



After making it through the worst of the hike







Lake Helene



Bear Lake was a little disappointing, with so many tourists. And after having spent some time isolated in the woods, the sight of a busy parking lot was a little disconcerting. We decided to hike up to Bierstadt Lake for lunch to get away from the crowds (after snacking on some of our ridiculously addictive trail mix, recipe to come). Bierstadt Lake was absolutely beautiful and turned out to be a great spot to spend some time relaxing. It's only about 2 miles from Bear Lake, so we weren't in isolation, but there were significantly fewer people (and screaming little kids).



Bierstadt Lake

After hanging out for a little while, we hiked up to our site at Upper Mill Creek Basin and spent the afternoon poking around the area, exploring the creek, and relaxing at the campsite. The scenery was a lot different that at Odessa Lake, but it was very cool to camp right next to the creek and hear the rushing water at night.

Mill Creek

After a long, refreshing night's sleep, we headed back to the Fern Lake trailhead to reunite with Gladys. We hiked up past Cub Lake then along a surprisingly swift winding river through a meadow. We ascended for a while coming out of Mill Creek Basin, but other than that the trail was mostly flat and very scenic.



Day 3 Route



Cub Lake



We were back to Gladys by 10:30am, so we were back in Boulder in time to have brunch at the Walnut Cafe and I even had time and energy to go for a nice trail run in the evening (and got caught in a sweet lightning storm!).

Nothing too epic, but all in all, a very solid weekend!



Los Angeles to Boulder Road Trip

Here's a short chronicle of the trip out to Boulder I put together. We drove through Zion, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks along the way. And had terrible weather the entire time.