Breck and Beer

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This morning, we "slept in" and didn't leave our hotel for the day's activities until nearly 9am. On the way out of town, we stopped at the City Market (as a joke, we never actually pronounce it that way) to pick up some muffins and a styrofoam cooler. The portable cooler I brought from home is probably not really made for ice, but just insulation. So, we had been having some problems with leakage throughout the day.

From there, I got behind the wheel and we went east towards Frisco, CO. We arrived into town around 10am. Although the shopping outlets they had there seemed enticing, we decided to go for a hike instead. About 3 miles up Ryan Gulch Rd. through neighborhoods of apartments and condos, we reached the trailhead for Lily Pad Lake.

Even though this hike was initially challenging as we walked up a gravel service road at about a 30 degree grade for a good 200 yards, it really leveled off from there. Also from the top of this initial hill was a great view of the Dillon Resevoir below - an enormous lake that is surely a destination for boating and sailing during the summer. As we continued along the path, we passed beaver pounds (with no beavers), streams, marshy clearings and spruce forests. At our destination was a small lake completely overtaken with lily pads followed by a significantly larger alpine lake behind it.

We met some other hikers, as seems to becoming a common thread with this trip, who were from Sedona, AZ and locally in Breckenridge. We snapped some pictures of them and they returned the favor. Then, per their recommendation, we decided to try an alternate trail back to our car called the Salt Lick Trail. The local woman said that in parts the trail would become a bit difficult to follow, but to always KEEP LEFT.

So, we started the trek back to the car with that in mind. The trail seemed easy enough to follow at first, but as Justin was tracking us on his Topo Map (through an Iphone app) he just didn't think we were heading in the right direction. We came to the first fork in the trail about a 1/2 mile in and went left...but it literally seemed like the left fork was almost causing us to double over the direction we had just come from. So, we came to a third fork, and at this point we decided to cut our losses and try to make our way back to the original trail. This was not accomplished by backtracking, by any means, but we continued on the route we had started and consulted the map whenever we would get to a fork in the trail.

Eventually, after about 3 more forks in the trail and ever so slowly seeing that we were getting close to the more well-traveled path, we decided to make a beeline for the main trail. There was a decent clearing in the woods with little brush or other debris blocking our way, so we cut across the area and finally made it to familiar territory. It took us about another 15 minutes to get back to the starting point, and we were certainly relieved to see the car in the parking area.

By this time, it was nearly 1pm and we were quite hungry for lunch. We decided to head over to Breckenridge because it seemed like it would be another cute ski town to check-out. Plus, it's fairly accessible since it's only about 10 miles south of the interstate. After parking (and might I mention, it was free for once), we got a table at the Breckenridge Brewery. Since they are known for brewing their own beer, we both decided to get a sampler. In hindsight, we probably could have done with a single sampler between the two of us. There were 8 beers totaling 32 ounces. When it's actually in front of you, it's really intimidating. The beers included a Pale Ale, an Amber, a Vanilla Porter, an Oatmeal Stout, a Belgian Ale, a Wheat and 2 IPA's. I took a sip of each, and then decided to finish my 4 favorites. So, in all, I maybe had 16 ounces of beer.

For the food portion of lunch, we ordered some peel 'n' eat shrimp to share. Justin had a half rack of ribs with fries, and I had a BBQ chicken sandwich with fries. With a slight buzz and full stomachs, we walked around to some of the shops in downtown Breckenridge. One of the stores we wandered into was a photography store. Justin was looking for a few minor supplies. As we were talking to the owner and he was schooling Justin on his photo equipment, he mentioned that he had shot for Nat Geo many times and had been published in countless other magazines. He was an interesting character, but he turned out to be very helpful. He offered to give us some tips for our next few days in Arches and Canyonlands if we could find him a map. So, Justin and I left the store and found a book store a few blocks down that sold maps. Once we had our map, we went back to the photo store and our unofficial, professional photographer guide marked up areas on our maps that we were not to miss. This would definitely require a bit of reworking of the schedule I had planned.

When we left the photo store for the second time, it was nearing 5pm. It had been a long day and we were looking forward to getting back to the hotel at this point. Away from Breck we went, and we made it back to our hotel around 6pm.

Following a few hours of winding down, Justin and I congregated with our newly purchased maps to figure out a game plan for the next few days. With such a limited time in the Moab area, we really need to time everything perfectly, particularly in regards to the photo opportunities. Then, about 8:45pm we decided we should probably catch some dinner before it got too late. So, we drove a few minutes to a local sushi place called Nozawa and had a few rolls - it was decent for small-town, Colorado.

The final steps of our evening included packing for the next few days and getting our showers in due to a very early morning tomorrow.