7 days in Colorado, where should I go?

[kkuntz01]

Great advice. I would love to do Moab this trip but I think that might have to wait until next year. Might be a bit too much driving mileage wise for my 8 soon to be 9 year old. We will see though. I would also have to convince my brother to drive down there as well.

Not sure how often your family does road trips, if you keep the kids occupied you shouldn't have a problem. We've been doing cross country road trips with our kids for 10 years (our oldest is 17 and our youngest is 6) now and the only time we ever had a problem was with our daughter when she was 8 months old in a rear facing baby carrier. The key is making sure they have things to keep them occupied (activities, entertainment, snacks, etc) and you should be fine.

For in vehicle entertainment we have iPad mounts attached to the headrests using Ram Mount iPad handle bar mounts so they can watch movies that we've downloaded to the device or stream from movies saved on the Seagate Wireless Pluss HDD which creates it's own wifi network to stream from.

Now as far as trails and such. As others have stated, pick yourself up the Funtreks trail book to plan out the trails you want to run/explore.

Depending on how you plan to structure your trip for accommodations (staying in one place for the entire week or moving from place to place every day) will dictate how you should plan trails. If you're staying in one locations for a week, try to plan the trails you intend to run in a loop if at all possible to avoid running a trail to the end, then turning around and go out the way you came in. One example, if you're able to run Black Bear Pass, run that trail from 550 into Telluride, then run Imogene Pass into Ouray. A similar scenario if you're going place to place across the state and you incorporate trails along the way. We did something like that on the way home on our first trip to Moab. We left Moab and slipped into Telluride, had lunch, then ran Imogene Pass into Ouray before making our way east on US-50 to Colorado Springs.

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[Jrbrannan]

Ouray, Silverton, and Creede are highly recommended but if you go in July plan on sleeping in your Jeep and bumper to bumper traffic. We go to Silverton every summer and make reservations months in advance. You can rent a house from Silverton Property Management for less than a motel. You should do 4th of July at least once. It is awesome.

I was thinking about middle of July (getting out there around July 15th) I would have planned earlier but quite frankly I was not even sure my Jeep that I ordered in January would be here (just got it last week).

So will traffic be bad just on the roads, or the trails as well? How bad of traffic are we talking about? I went to Yellowstone last year in August and everyone warned me about the traffic- but as long as we left early in the day we never had issues. Is this kind of the same thing or is it going to be a zoo no matter what?

 

[Jrbrannan]

Not sure how often your family does road trips, if you keep the kids occupied you shouldn't have a problem. We've been doing cross country road trips with our kids for 10 years (our oldest is 17 and our youngest is 6) now and the only time we ever had a problem was with our daughter when she was 8 months old in a rear facing baby carrier. The key is making sure they have things to keep them occupied (activities, entertainment, snacks, etc) and you should be fine.

For in vehicle entertainment we have iPad mounts attached to the headrests using Ram Mount iPad handle bar mounts so they can watch movies that we've downloaded to the device or stream from movies saved on the Seagate Wireless Pluss HDD which creates it's own wifi network to stream from.

Now as far as trails and such. As others have stated, pick yourself up the Funtreks trail book to plan out the trails you want to run/explore.

Depending on how you plan to structure your trip for accommodations (staying in one place for the entire week or moving from place to place every day) will dictate how you should plan trails. If you're staying in one locations for a week, try to plan the trails you intend to run in a loop if at all possible to avoid running a trail to the end, then turning around and go out the way you came in. One example, if you're able to run Black Bear Pass, run that trail from 550 into Telluride, then run Imogene Pass into Ouray. A similar scenario if you're going place to place across the state and you incorporate trails along the way. We did something like that on the way home on our first trip to Moab. We left Moab and slipped into Telluride, had lunch, then ran Imogene Pass into Ouray before making our way east on US-50 to Colorado Springs.

Awesome! Thanks. This is exactly what I was looking for.

 

[kkuntz01]

I was thinking about middle of July (getting out there around July 15th) I would have planned earlier but quite frankly I was not even sure my Jeep that I ordered in January would be here (just got it last week).

So will traffic be bad just on the roads, or the trails as well? How bad of traffic are we talking about? I went to Yellowstone last year in August and everyone warned me about the traffic- but as long as we left early in the day we never had issues. Is this kind of the same thing or is it going to be a zoo no matter what?

The trails shouldn't be too bad unless there is some sort of event going on, or you run into a large group running trails. The worst places you might experience traffic are in the small towns midday since they're tourist hot spots. Not Chicago rush hour horrible, but busy for a small middle of nowhere town.

 

[1quick1]

I want to get back out to Ouray, Telluride, Silverton, Lake City the last weekend of July.

I go yearly in May but most of the trails are still snowed in at that time. We never have lodging/camping issues in early May but not sure where to try at the end of July during the very busy season.

 

[Krondor]

Hell I live here and found gold in this thread. lol

Love exploring Colorado, but I would spend time in a location where you can take your time and enjoy the scenery. Rushing place to place will miss the whole point, imho.

Pick one or two and spend proper time with family.

 

[Grimmjpr]

I was thinking about middle of July (getting out there around July 15th) I would have planned earlier but quite frankly I was not even sure my Jeep that I ordered in January would be here (just got it last week).

So will traffic be bad just on the roads, or the trails as well? How bad of traffic are we talking about? I went to Yellowstone last year in August and everyone warned me about the traffic- but as long as we left early in the day we never had issues. Is this kind of the same thing or is it going to be a zoo no matter what?

The FJ Summit runs in Ouray from July 18th to the 22nd......it will be very busy during this time.....but normally when i've been there its not been too crowded. There are a lot of trails out there, I was there during the FJ summit a few years ago, it wasn't too bad though there were a lot of Toyotas running around.

 

[bilcol81]

I was thinking about middle of July (getting out there around July 15th) I would have planned earlier but quite frankly I was not even sure my Jeep that I ordered in January would be here (just got it last week).

So will traffic be bad just on the roads, or the trails as well? How bad of traffic are we talking about? I went to Yellowstone last year in August and everyone warned me about the traffic- but as long as we left early in the day we never had issues. Is this kind of the same thing or is it going to be a zoo no matter what?

Weekdays aren't as bad as weekends but there will be traffic on the trails most of the day. There are some roads that are not crowded because most people want to do the main trails like Engineer, Cinnamon, Black Bear. Take a drive up Kendall Peak and it's just a short hike to the summit over 13,000 ft. with a fantastic view of Silverton in the valley below

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