Colorado/Utah Road Trip June 2019 – Mini Trip Report

[kateh134]

I’ve used the DIBB for many years and have taken snippets of information along the way, for trips to Florida and further afield. I now feel it’s time for me to pay back and hope this information is helpful to others for inspiration or planning.

Travellers – myself and OH. Both recently retired and are making travel a priority and hope to start ticking places off a very long bucket list! We love going to USA and have done a number of road trips before, but the last one was several years ago. OH is chief planner and driver and I’m chief navigator.

Flights – BA from Heathrow to Denver (World Traveller Plus). I refused to pay to reserve our seats on either leg, so we ended up with two in the middle of a row of four on the outward flight, but we had lovely people either side and had no issues. Immigration was very speedy, as was collecting our cases, but car hire (Avis) was a different matter altogether (see below).
We couldn’t check in on line for the return flight, so checked in at the airport and were allocated the front row so had loads of leg room and managed to get some sleep. Immigration at Heathrow was fast and for the first time ever, I managed to get through the automated booth without any assistance!

Car Hire – booked with Avis as part of the package with BA (intermediate SUV) and we ended up with a Jeep Wrangler, which was less than a month old. It took over an hour to drive the car away, and we had expected fees of $169, which were not resolved as we left Denver. We were told the fees were because we’d amended our booking, when all we’d done was add our Avis Preferred membership number. It took a few e mails while we were away, but we did get it resolved and they agreed to refund the charge, after we returned the car and paid the fee. We did around 1900 miles over the course of our 18 night trip.

Accommodation - we spent months planning our route and looking at destination and accommodation options and finally booked the following:

Colorado Springs – 3 nights at Best Western Plus Peak Vista
Durango – 4 nights at Antlers on the Creek B&B
Moab – 5 nights in a rental town house
Breckenridge – 3 nights in a studio room at Marriott Mountain Lodge
Grand Lake – 3 nights in a cabin at Lupine Village

Our time and effort paid off and we were really pleased with most of our choices and Antlers on the Creek was absolutely amazing! We generally booked direct as they had the best prices, and a couple were through a well known accommodation rental site.

What we did:

Day 1 – drove to Colorado Springs (75 miles)

Day 2 – Cheyenne Zoo and Will Rogers Shrine to the Sun

Day 3 – Pikes Peak (could only get to 11000 feet as there was still snow on the top) and Garden of the Gods

Day 4 – drove to Durango (326 miles)

Day 5 – Mesa Verde National Park including a Cliff Palace tour

Day 6 – walked most of the Animal Trail in Durango

Day 7 - Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Rail Road

Day 8 – Mesa Verde National Park again and drove to Moab (149 miles)

Day 9 – Arches National Park (early morning and again in the evening)

Day 10 – Canyonlands National Park and sunset 4x4 jeep tour with Dan Mick

Day 11 – wandering round Moab, Arches National Park for sunset at Panorama Point

Day 12 – boat trip with Canyonlands Day and Night and Dead Horse Point State Park

Day 13 – drove to Breckenridge (301 miles) via scenic route 128

Day 14 – walking in and around Breckenridge

Day 15 – walking in and around Breckenridge

Day 16 – drove to Grand Lake (92 miles) and Rocky Mountain National Park

Day 17 – scenic drive from Grand Lake to Estes Park through and a tour of Stanley Hotel

Day 18 – drove back to Denver Airport (92 miles)

Highlights

4x4 jeep tour – not cheap, but fabulous fun and would highly recommend if you're ever in Moab
All of the National Parks were amazing in their own way, but Canyonlands was simply jaw dropping. In some places, you could see for 90 miles!
We bought an ‘America the Beautiful’ annual pass at Mesa Verde which we put to good use and definitely got full value for the $80 cost. We also hope to use this when we do a road trip next year.
Seeing elk and moose in Rocky Mountain NP
Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad - we deliberated for ages over booking this, but were glad we did and saw some amazing scenery which we couldn't have seen any other way.
Stanley Hotel tour – this was a spur of the minute booking and we both thoroughly enjoyed this. OH is a Stephen King fan and I loved the history of the hotel.
Breckenridge – we both loved the feel of this place. It’s a ski resort but there is something here for everyone no matter what time of year.
We had a real mix of weather from freezing to 30 degrees, but packed accordingly. We only had rain on a couple of occasions, and it didn't stop us doing anything.

Lows
The only real low was Avis, but it was resolved and we had the promised refund within a fews days.

We both struggled with altitude sickness far more than we anticipated. We followed the guidelines, and were doing quite well until we did the route over RMNP. Anything more than standing became hard work, particularly for me. OH coped with it better, but he still struggled.

We've been back less than 2 weeks and are already planning the next one! Canada, California and Texas are all in the mix, but we'll see what happens when we start looking in earnest. Our next trip is to Wales for a week, and then Singapore and Bali.

Thanks for reading.

[Melbatb]

Looks and sounds fabulous!

We have done a lot of Canada trips - a glorious place to visit!

[Wordsworth]

We’re going back to Moab again next year - we did not get enough time in Arches last time we visited! We’re going to RMNP for the first time too so great to hear about what you did round there. Plus I hadn’t considered altitude sickness!

[CrispyA]

Looks like a great trip - Canyonlands is such a cool National Park. Can recommend Texas.

[Gunna]

Thanks for posting this, planning a trip to some of these places in 2020 so good to get some info ahead of the planning.

[kateh134]

You’re welcome Gunna. Your Canada trip report is one of the reasons it’s on our list and I’d love to go to the Calgary Stampede.