As I sit here in the warm comfort of my home, I realized we had not closed out our visit to Breckenridge. During our last few days there, the weather was starting to turn “wintery” and we had to make a hasty exit to avoid the incoming 10 inches of snow and sub-freezing temperatures that were forecasted and those temps were the daytime HIGHs! In all the commotion of packing up and pulling chalks, 2 days early, we were negligent in sharing our adventures during the second half of our stay. So here you go, better late than never.
It seemed like the forecast was becoming a little bit of a recurring theme, cool nights, clouds in the morning, sun in the afternoon, rain forecast for late afternoon, clearing skies, then a repeat. One of the great benefits of this weather was the color contrasts, white, snow covered mountains, green pine trees, yellow aspen leaves. Made for some beautiful views.
We decided to take advantage of the sunny skies and take a drive up Boreas Pass Road. Boreas Pass Road was originally the nation’s highest narrow-gauge railroad, but in the 1950’s it was converted to a gravel forest road. It begins in Breckenridge on the north end of town near Railroad Park. We had driven it on one of our previous trips and the aspen were brilliant and gorgeous. This year, though, the leaves seemed to be on the back side of their peak colors. Nevertheless, there were still quite a few groves of trees just screaming for us to take pictures 🙂
One of the things about the rainy weather is for some reason, it made us hungry to go out and explore Breckenridge’s restaurants. I think we did a pretty good job of it. Not that we were on any kind of eatfest or anything, more like a cuisine sampling. We did breakfast at the Blue Moose one day, lunch at Breckenridge Brewery, and a great pub, Downstair’s at Eric’s , to watch Thursday night football. We even managed a couple of picnics.
We did end up with one more day of full sun and clear skies, so we headed west to drive the Top of the Rockies scenic byway. It runs along US Hwy 24. We drove it from Minturn to Leadville through Tennessee pass and by Turquoise Lake. We had heard that the Aspen leaves were still in top color at some of the lower elevations on the west side of the ranges, they were right. Minturn was a lovely town that looks like a place we will return to and explore. Besides the fall foliage, there was an old ghost town, Gilman, and a historic site, Camp Hale, which was the World War II training camp for the 10th Mountain Division. Along the road was also the Red Cliff bridge, which dates back to the ’30s. All-in-all a great day to enjoy the Colorado fall weather and scenery.
Well that was the last day the weather wanted us to stay. We woke early on Sunday with plans for another leaf peeping trip. When we checked the weather to be sure, out of the blue, the forecast had changed. Now we were looking at 3-5 inches of snow and 3-5 inches of more snow on Monday. It also showed that the rain we had that night, was snow up in the mountains, and I-70 was slush covered.
The better part of prudence guided us and we decided it was time to pack-up and head out before we got trapped. Out motorhome is not exactly snow-friendly. We had a wonderful time in Colorado this fall and will continue to return this time of year. Our trip this year ended up dictated by the weather more than our planning, but as they say, flexibility is the key to airpower (old Air Force Saying). Till our next adventure.
This was the first year in over twenty some years, that we didn’t spend any time in our home state of Colorado. Oh, how it was missed, but we don’t miss the snow.
Iowa State? My husband graduated from there …. many moons ago 😄