A Daytrip to Breckenridge

Aspens and snow.  Those were the two primary reasons for dragging my husband out on a 168-mile day trip into the mountains.  We drove a loop drive via I-70 to Breckenridge, then across Boreas Pass via a 16.5 mile dirt road, and back to Denver via US 285.

It was a beautiful day, but lots of driving.  Next time we’ll spend the night in Frisco or Breckenridge to get in some hiking and biking.

Some stops along the way included:

* Georgetown – for an arts festival, but we missed the Bighorn Sheep Viewing area (darn!).  Learned that the lake in Georgetown has a recorded max wind speed of 123 mph.  It was windy when we visited, but not that bad!

* Frisco – I just had to stop for pictures of kayaks and sailboats with snow-capped mountains in the backdrop.

Frisco looks like a cute town – there’s also a microbrewery and a (10-mile?) paved bike trail to Breckenridge.

* Breckenridge – we played tourists.  Hit the shops, walked the streets, ate lunch…

* Boreas Pass Road – I heard about this road as an “Aspen Viewing” spot from the Denver weather website.  So no wonder ‘his forecast’ was wrong!  Ha!  He wrote a “11-mile” unpaved road, but it was actually 16.5 miles of unpaved road to get across the mountain.  When you’re driving 5-15mph that extra distance adds quite a bit of time.  It was beautiful with Aspens and snow…

Andy usually complains a little bit before these ‘unpaved, mountain drives’ – but then he loves it.  He’s like a kid driving a go-cart:  swerving to avoid a mine-field of potholes, passing cars on sections so narrow you think you’ll drop off if you shift over one more inch, or having to back up when all of a sudden it goes to one lane…on a blind curve…with other cars coming…

I just have to say, I’m glad Andy’s such a good driver on these roads!  I would’ve dropped off a cliff years ago.  He’d rather drive, and I’d rather enjoy the scenery and take photos.  (Sshhh, don’t tell him, but I have a few more mountain passes to drive over before too much snow falls!)

Lots more photos on our Colorado_Sept WebAlbums.