according to anna

Vacation in Avon

September 14, 2008 on 8:12 pm | In Uncategorized |

Here is a summary of our trip to Colorado.

Day 1
We flew into Denver, rented a car, and drove 2 hours to Avon, Colorado.
We checked into Christie Lodge.
The views in and out of the Vail Valley were pretty cool.

We didn’t see any snowcapped mountains until our way out of the valley.

View from the drive:

Another view from the drive:

Day 2
Doug, Matt, and I hiked the Booth Falls Trail. This is a two mile trail to a 60-foot waterfall (and then 2 miles back). This trail was a lot harder than we thought. Since this was only our second day at this elevation, we thought we would do a nice and easy hike…only this was not it! The two-mile trek has an elevation gain of 1500 feet. In the end though, it was well worth it!

Matt and I along the trail:

The waterfall:

Day 3
We drove into Glenwood Springs, CO and went whitewater rafting. This was my favorite part of our whole trip. We rafted about 9 miles of the Colorado River, from Shoshone to West Glenwood. The rapids were a class III or IV. We got totally soaked and the water was super-cold! I didn’t take our camera on the raft since we would surely lose it. I was surprised though, when I saw the photos they took of us to try to sell…on one photo, the waves were so big that you could only see 2 out of the 8 people in the raft! I’m proud of us for making it through without flipping the raft or falling out!
Here are some photos of the rapids we went over:
The Wall:

Maneater:

Pinball:

Day 4
On Day 4, we took the Vail Pass Bike Tour. A bus took us up to the top of the Vail Pass and dropped us off with bikes and a map. We rode for 2 hours down 3,000 vertical feet through the Vail Pass into Vail. There were some great views along the way. The trip from the trailhead into Lionshead was about 15 miles. Luckily most of that was downhill. We ate lunch in Vail and missed the shuttle back to Avon, so we rode another 8 miles from Vail to Avon. That was the roughest part.
I don’t want to see another bike for awhile.

Here we are at the top of the Vail Pass.

We took a break at this creek along the way.

Other views along the way:

Day 5
The rest of the group arrived and we hiked the 2.3 mile Shine Mountain Trail. We started this trail at the top of Vail Pass and climbed another 645 feet to the ending elevation of 11,747ft. At the top, we saw some great views and even found some leftover snow.

Day 6
We stayed around Avon, and walked through the park.
In the evening, we drove up to Beaver Creek to walk around and have Italian-style gelato at Remini.

Here is everyone hanging out with Einstein.

Day 7
We drove back to Glenwood Springs and rode up a tram to the top of a cliff to take a tour of Glenwood Caverns.
Inside the tram:

View of Glenwood Springs from the tram car:

Inside the cave:

That pretty much covers the highlights, but I did go a little photo-crazy on this trip.
you can find all my photos here.