Summer trip to Colorado and the 4 Corners area (Denver, Grand Junction: rental car, rental)

[awestover89]

My husband and I are thinking of taking a trip out to Colorado and the general four corners area next summer, but there's a lot we wanted to see and do, and we'd only have around a week. My initial rough thoughts were something like:

Day 1 - Drive to CO, stay in/near Estes Park
Day 2 - General hiking, enjoying the Rockies, drive to Idaho Springs
Day 3 - River Rafting
Day 4 - Hike Mt. Bierstadt, go to hot springs at Strawberry Springs
Day 5 - Drive to Four Corners Monument, then on towards the Grand Canyon
Day 6 - Grand Canyon, drive towards Utah
Day 7 - Half day at Natural Bridges national park, half day at Arches national park
Day 8 - Drive back home

Is there anything that we are missing? Anything not really worth the time? What would be your suggestions for a trip like this?

[bluescreen73]

At first glance that's a LOT of driving for an 8-day itinerary. Makes me think of the Grand Canyon scene in "Vacation."

It's a good 2.5 hour drive from Mt. Bierstadt to Steamboat Springs (assuming you mean Strawberry Park Hot Springs), and it's 7 hours from Steamboat to the Four Corners.

[SkyDog77]

Too much. Skip the Grand. It's an amazing place, I spent two weeks in that canyon and didn't see enough. A few hours there is hardly worth the drive.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

First question -- how much hiking have you done at high altitude? Mt. Bierstadt hike starts at over 11,000 feet and the summit is at 14,060 feet. Hard enough for those of us living at high altitude.

Secondly, I think you are planning for too much driving and not enough time doing. The drive from Chicago to Estes Park will take somewhere around 15 hours. On Day 4, Strawberry Springs hot springs is nowhere near Mt. Bierstadt but is in Steamboat Springs. Day 5 would involve ten hours of driving from Georgetown Colorado (near Mt. Bierstadt) to the Grand Canyon, so don't plan on stopping anywhere. Day 6 would give you the morning at the Grand Canyon before packing up and driving to Utah. And Day 7 gives you a half-day at Arches? Seriously? Do you plan on seeing anything in either of these two areas? Assuming you spend the night in Moab, then Day 8 would be driving 20 hours from Moab back to Chicago.

I suggest that you either give yourselves two weeks, or pare down your plan. Do you really have to hike and raft and go to hot springs? Are you fit enough to do a 7-mile round trip hike at over 11,000 feet and then drive for five hours?

For a one-week trip, assuming that you share the driving and one person sleeps while the other one drives, perhaps you could do the following itinerary. However, I still feel that this is really tight, especially trying to do a major hike after driving for 15 hours.

Day 1, drive to Denver and spend the night.
Day 2, drive to Georgetown, go over Guanella Pass and hike as much of Mt. Bierstadt as you reasonably can. Drive to Buena Vista and spend the night.
Day 3, river rafting, then go to Cottonwood Hot Springs or Mt. Princeton Hot Springs. Spend the night in BV.
Day 4, drive to Grand Canyon with stop at Four Corners. This will be a long day, with about 9 hours driving.
Day 5, spend the night in the Grand Canyon. This gives you a whole day at the Grand Canyon.
Day 6, drive to Moab, with a stop at Natural Bridges.
Day 7, spend the day at Arches and Canyonlands
Day 8, drive back home

perhaps you could break up the drive back home by leaving Moab on day 7 and spending the night in Denver (this is five hours driving time)

[beezle1]

Mesa Verde!

[Mike from back east]

That is one rather TERRIBLE itinerary. Far too much time is spent driving as opposed to enjoying.

Chicago to Denver is 1004 miles, 16 hours in one day. OUCH. At 25MPG, that's 40 gallons at $3/gallon or $120 just for gas. I'm looking at airfares on SWA of $138/one way per person. Far better to fly out in 3 hours and get to Estes Park on day ONE with time to take the tram up to the top of the mountain, explore the elk herds in RMNP, etc. Rather than drive in a circle around Colorado, revise the scheme to fly into Denver, move west to various attractions in the center and northern part of the state, go through Moab, UT flying back from Salt Lake City, UT.

I've been to four corners, it's a parking lot in the middle of nowhere with a concrete pad marking where 4 states converge, and a ring of kiosks selling trinkets. Big deal. Skip it and the Grand Canyon on this trip, save them for a trip where you fly into Albuquerque to see Sante Fe, Taos, Durango, Telluride, Cortez, Four Corners, The Grand Canyon, and fly back from Phoenix.

[6.7traveler]

Agree with everyone else about the excessive driving.
Also I wasn't the biggest fan of arches.... Just saying. I think Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction is much better. Next time I go to Moab I'm sticking with canyonlands.

[awestover89]

The drive to/from Chicago doesn't really phase me, we used to make yearly trips to either Texas (18 hours) or Philly (12 hours), and in past years we've done Florida (20 hours) and last summer was Seattle (30 hours, that one was a little rough, mostly because of how desolate it got Dakota and Montana) but I might need to take more time looking at the driving times between destinations. We generally prefer driving whenever possible, and even if we flew we'd have to rent a car, which would run us about $450 for a week to/from Denver airport. Picking up and dropping off at different airports brings the rental car price up to $600. For gas I was using 35 MPG, average of $2.50 a gallon which comes up to $250 for this entire itinerary (3554 miles, 102 gallons of gas).

Sounds like I'm underestimating how long we'll need to spend at each attraction though. The 4 corners monument is just a polaroid moment on the way to better things.

Re: Mt. Bierstadt, I wasn't really thinking elevation. The highest we've hiked was Hurricane Ridge in Washington, and that was around 5K. I had read reviews that Mt. Bierstadt trails weren't too difficult. Definitely won't be able to do 7 miles, maybe 3 miles rt, but having never hiked at that elevation, who knows.

[awestover89]

Originally Posted by beezle1

Mesa Verde!

Mesa Verde does seem really interesting, maybe we could split this into two trips, Colorado this summer doing the Rockies, hot springs, white water rafting, and Mesa Verde, then do 4 corners, grand canyon, and Utah as another trip.

I'll also look at Colorado National Monument as another poster mentioned, especially if we decide to keep this trip entirely in CO.

[captain_hug99]

Originally Posted by awestover89

Re: Mt. Bierstadt, I wasn't really thinking elevation. The highest we've hiked was Hurricane Ridge in Washington, and that was around 5K. I had read reviews that Mt. Bierstadt trails weren't too difficult. Definitely won't be able to do 7 miles, maybe 3 miles rt, but having never hiked at that elevation, who knows.

You'll be starting at 5 or 6K for the hike then going up.

I personally enjoyed the 4 corners monument, it was only a 20 minute pit-stop, but it was fun for us. We did stop there on our drive to the Grand Canyon. We spent 4 days there and I could sit on the edge for hours watching the sun play with the canyon.