On our fourth day in Summit County we decided to try and tackle Peak 1 and the Tenmile peak. Emphasis on ‘try’ as the altitude did beat us in the end we turned around short of Peak 1 summit. Of course not without having enjoyed a lot of great views past Victoria summit. Overall we still managed to do about 3400ft (1036m) of elevation in a little over 6 miles. Definitely felt a lot better compare to our short outing before.
On the third day we decided to recover a bit and went for a drive again. The highest paved road in North America is conveniently only about an hour away from Dillon. So we decided to pay Mt Evans a visit. While quite touristy, it still afforded us quite some nice views. At 14,271ft (4350 m) we felt the elevation quite a bit again and we were quite happy we didn’t try to hike it ;) Morning from our cabin: Observatory on top of Mt Evans: Wild mountain goat roaming through the parking lot: Another goat: Melting waters: We better get out of here:
On the second day we worked our regular East Coast hours, so we had some time to explore in the afternoon. For starters we went with a very short trail: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/colorado/meadow-creek-trail-to-lily-pad-lake We didn’t quite expect the elevation change to impact us so much, but as it turns out, we’re also dependent on our red blood cells for oxigen delivery. As a result even the little elevation change was quite exhausting. Apparently going from sea level (Boston) to 9000+ ft makes a difference in what we can do ;) Some more pictures: Fab trotting up the trail: Trail: Made a new friend: View onto Dillon: View onto Royal, Victoria, and Peak 1: Lily pad lake:
After finally getting our luggage at the airport, we took the shuttle to the rental car center. After a brief sting in downtown Denver (it was a bit crowded for us) we headed westbound on I-70 towards Dillon. Since we couldn’t check into our airbnb before 4pm anyways, we decided to do a little scenic loop after a short coffee stop. I70->24->91 Here are some of the pictures we took: