For our first weekend in Colorado, we decided to head north and west of our home base in Denver to the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. We spent three nights in a teeny tiny, very cute cabin in Grand Lake, Colorado with M’s cousin. Our very ambitious plan was to go for at least two hikes each day – one in the morning with Dog to get him tired out, then a longer one in RMNP where Dog is not welcome because he’s a dog, and the national park is a national park. Unfortunately, we failed to take into account several different factors of mountain hiking, like our own physical fitness (hello altitude!), how far away various trails are from one another, and road/trail conditions due to various weather events. In 2020, Colorado experienced the three biggest and most destructive fires in the history of the state. The forests around us in Grand Lake had been absolutely decimated by the East Troublesome fire in October of last year, so a lot of trails and parts of parks that we had intended to hike were closed due to fire damage. So we had to adjust our plans on the fly. As it happens, we got to do exactly one hike per day, and that was perfect. And, contrary to our expectations, we only got one hike in at RMNP, but the entire weekend was still very cool.

Snowshoeing at the Nordic Center

This “hike” was actually a backup plan used to salvage a day that was otherwise bereft of physical activities. And it was one of my favorites! After spending more than two hours in the car trying to dodge road closures and find a suitable dog-friendly hike, we ended up calling our Airbnb host and, on her recommendation, the Grand Lake Chamber of Commerce (lol) who directed us to the Nordic Center. This place had cross country skiing, sled dog training, snowshoeing, and… no hiking. Sometimes if the snow is packed down enough, you can get permission to walk on snowshoe trails, but that wasn’t the case here. We were nervous to try a brand new sport with Dog, but snowshoeing seemed like it had the lowest barrier to entry and honestly, we were sick of driving around. So we strapped on our snowshoes and off we went!

Walking in snowshoes took a little bit of getting used to, but ultimately, it didn’t slow us down too much. The snow was up to our knees in most places on the trail and well past it in a lot of others. We know this because Dog had absolutely no qualms about tearing off trail to do a wacky donut or two in the powder. On a related note, if you’ve never seen a dog get the zoomies in snow drifts as tall as they are, I would highly recommend it. Dog looked like a slow motion antelope, or maybe a really, really graceless dolphin as he tried to crest the snow drifts with each leap. He gets an A for effort, an A+ for enthusiasm, and a D for execution. But the altitude, the constant manic motion, and the resistance from the snow combined to make one tired pup. When we got back to the cabin around 4:30PM, Dog crashed and slept through until morning.

All in all, we had a There were only a few portions of the trail where we had to do much climbing, and with the exception of a few massive snowballs that got caught on the spikes, the snowshoes worked flawlessly. We experienced that weird mountain phenomenon where even though there were feet of snow on the ground and the temperatures were below freezing, the sun was bright and warm, and we were much too toasty in our jackets. We shed those pretty immediately, and were rocking the sunglasses, winter hat and long sleeve T look that ski bums pull off so effortlessly, but that made me feel like I was dressed by a toddler. But it worked! The hike was very scenic, but rather tragically so. The fires from last year had hit the Nordic Center trails, so the forests that we were hiking through weren’t much more than clusters of sooty sticks. The devastation from the fires meant that we could see for miles and miles at pretty much every point on the trail, which would be the closest thing to a silver lining I could muster.

We saw a few other snowshoers on the trail, but the most notable was a group of women we offered to photograph at the end of a trail. When I counted down to the picture, one of them said “Saaaaaay Fireball!” which definitely caught our attention. Then they tossed us a travel sized bottle of Fireball whiskey and gave us instructions for making a “Fireball snow cone” which I will graciously share with you, Reader: when the conditions are right, simply scoop up a handful of snow and form it into a snowball, add a splash of Fireball (which you will of course be always carrying in your pack, like the health and fitness icon you are), and take a bite!

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Monarch Lake Loop Trail in Arapahoe National Forest

On our second full day in Grand Lake we were determined not to make the same mistake as the day before. We had our hike to Monarch Lake mapped out and we were ready to rock and roll first thing in the morning. We had heard that Monarch Lake had some of the most picturesque scenery in the whole state, and the Arapahoe Natl. Forest was largely welcoming to dogs – a win win! Plus, this area was mercifully untouched by the fires, so it was all lush evergreens and clean snow. On the day we hiked (and indeed, every day that we were in Grand Lake), the morning forecast was quite gray, overcast, and snowy, but the clouds burned off around midday and the sunlight polished those mountaintops right up.

The road to the trailhead was closed about a mile from that actual start of the trail. That was fine, except that it made the hike two miles longer than we had expected, and if you’ve ever tried hiking up and down a mountain in the snow, you know that those extra miles don’t go very quickly. But still, we were undeterred. M and I both had Yaktrax that gave us traction on the ice and snowpack, and all of us had hiking poles which turned out to be instrumental in finding the hard packed snow of the trail vs the loose snowdrifts to the left and right. The big miss on this day was that we didn’t make Dog wear his fashionable yet functional snow booties and jacket. It was definitely cold enough to warrant them, and especially in the more exposed parts of the trail, he was asking for paw warm-ups pretty frequently.

Once we got to the trailhead, the path seemed to take a pretty basic 4mi loop around the lake. We arrived at the same time as a pair of snowshoers, so we each set off in a different direction around the lake and joked that we’d cross paths on the other side, but oddly, we never saw them again. This was one of a few indicators that suggested to us that we may have taken a wrong turn at some point, but we made it back to the trailhead and the mileage roughly matched up to what was on the map, so who knows what happened.

This hike was moderately difficult due to uneven terrain, steep inclines, and the abundant opportunities to posthole. “Posthole” was a new word we learned on this trip, and had to use literally constantly. In this context, it refers to breaking through the snowpack of a well-traveled trail and sinking through to the ground. Your leg is the post, and the hole is the hole. Posthole. This trail was narrow and it was easy to misstep off of either edge, resulting in a boot and pant leg full of snow. Plus we had some downed trees and other obstacles that we had to climb over, under, or around. It was fun, but definitely not for the unmotivated hiker! We remarked a couple of times that it would have been really difficult to complete this hike with any more or less gear than we had with us. Also, we’re pretty sure we missed a moose by less than an hour while we were about 1/3 of the way around the lake. We saw deep, narrow tracks in the fresh snow, and as soon as we came upon them, Dog got really scared and moved from his position in the lead to back behind M, safely in the middle of the pack. He didn’t relax for a few hundred feet, but after he put his hackles down we figured the danger had passed. We’re really glad we didn’t come face to face with a moose because those guys can be unpredictable, and we had the added wildcard of the deaf pitbull who might not understand our moose confrontation deescalation protocol in a crisis. Shoutout to M’s cousin for instilling in us a healthy fear of moose encounters!

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Colorado River Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park

We hit this trail on our way out of town, but that doesn’t mean it’s an afterthought! We desperately wanted to get at least one hike in at RMNP while we were in that part of the state, and the park ranger’s recommendation was to hike up along the Colorado River. There was an out and back trail (usually not our favorites, since you see the same things twice) that could go as far as 8mi up the river. We had a time constraint because we had to be back to the Airbnb to check out and pick up Dog, so we set an alarm and tried to make it as far as possible before the buzzer.

The benefit of hiking on a snowy Monday morning is that you basically have the entire world to yourself. We made it about 1.75mi before turning back, and didn’t see another soul. This trail was primarily used for snowshoers and cross country skiers, but was approved for hiking as well. It seemed as if we were the first hikers in a while though, and the snowpack wasn’t super solid, so we had another chance to try out our new vocab word! Plus, this trail had some portions that were completely obscured by windblown snow. It was a total guessing game to try and find the trail, and we postholed on maybe 60% of our steps in those areas. But the trees were perfectly frosted, the mountaintops delightfully snowcapped, and the river was running despite the freezing forecast. Between all that and the lightly falling snow, we really felt like we were enjoying the perfect Colorado morning.

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Hot Sulfur Springs

This was not a hike, but rather an outdoor bath in little cement pools fed by natural springs. If that sounds delightful after a weekend full of mountain hiking, it was! If that sounds weird as an outdoor winter activity, it was! The hot springs resort we visited allowed groups or individuals to make 2hr reservations that would give them access to their mountainside maze of 15 different pools. The higher up the mountain you went, the hotter the pools were. We made a reservation for three people in the 6PM – 8PM time slot.

Although we arrived right on time for our reservation, a lot of the bigger, hotter pools were already pretty crowded by the time we were choosing a spot to soak. We ended up finding a tiny cement pool about halfway up the mountain. It was set way off the path with high walls on three sides, and the temp clocked in at 107°. We stayed there for about an hour before we started steaming like little dumplings in a sulfur soup. At that point M made the courageous decision to get out of the pool for a Gatorade run and recon mission, where he discovered a bigger, cooler (both in temperature and location) pool near the bottom of the mountain. We all braved the freezing cold night to secure the prime real estate. This one was more open to the air, and had the spring water flowing into the pool from a spout about 15ft up the tiled wall. Overall, it was a delightful experience right up until we had to get out and shuffle run to our car before we froze into popsicles.