8-24 Drive to the house at 7700ft.
Rental House at 7700ft.
8-25 Estes Park Trail at 7500ft
8-25 Copeland and Calypso Falls at 9100ft
8-25 Driving
8-26 Devil's Backbone at 5400ft
8-26 Driving and Other
8-27 Cable Car and Prospect Mountain at 8900ft
8-27 Dream Lake at 9905ft
8-27 Clouds and Sunset
8-28 Hermit Park at 8800ft. We took the Kruger Rock trail.
8-29 Downtown Estes and River walk at 7500ft
The trip was a lot of fun. They had a surprisingly good BBQ restaurant there with phenomenal brisket. I also had a very tasty elk and bison meatloaf. I could definitely see myself living there, though perhaps not in Estes Park which was clearly a tourist destination.
The hikes were more challenging than I expected; it seemingly took me a long time to acclimate to the higher altitude. Keep in mind that the house we stayed at was higher in altitude than the highest mountain in NY by over 2,000ft (Marcy's summit is at 5,344ft) and taller than the tallest mountain in KY by well over 3,000ft. This area of Colorado was reasonably dry, but not desert dry; dew point in the 50s, humidity ranging from 25-60%. We had dew several times while we were there. We actually got very lucky and near perfect weather for our stay. We also didn't have any smoke until the last day. There is fire damage in the area, but for the most part this section Colorado isn't doing too bad. You may also note that despite the warm weather, there was a lack of people swimming in the lakes. Most lakes recommend against swimming, which was unfortunate. Apparently leeches are a pretty major problem in the region. We also noted that there are virtually no bugs, we routinely left doors open and didn't see a single mosquito.
Our rental was a Chrysler Pacifica mini-van. Despite my disdain for the brand (Chrysler is among the worst brands of vehicles to buy), it wasn't awful. It was completely gutless, but for a 4-cylinder at 7000ft+ carrying 4-6 passengers at all times, it wasn't awful. I didn't check the mileage, but it didn't seem to be awful; the whole trip was less than a tank. It had a roughly 18 gallon tank on it. I don't like the way it was geared, it was slow to shift and first gear didn't go fast enough to pull out in traffic. Personally I also don't like the power doors and tailgate (the back doors weren't open and slide, it was push a button and wait). The tail gate was tall enough that I could stand under it. It had stow and go seating which makes for bad unadjustable back seats that were very unintuitive to set up, but I understand the feature and why people like it. It was unfortunate that the third set of windows didn't open. The AC was weak for the amount of interior space. Ours was loaded and did have some nice features, like built in window shades that didn't require the windows be closed.
Something to keep in mind for traveling purposes: There were large periods of time where I had no cell signal, even on I25. I was largely under the impression that the interstates at least had coverage, but that wasn't the case. Most the parks and stuff did have coverage though, so all is not lost. I would just have to avoid stopping in the mountains. I will also have to get a real camera. I really didn't like the automatic exposure, and in direct sunlight I can't see the screen on my phone well enough to accurately judge whether it did it right. I was considering getting something like a Go Pro to mount to my dash/roof and set it for periodic exposures. I will want something better than my phone for traveling/hiking though.
