Steamboat Springs Area Recon

[burbnamedbill]

Took a little family vaca with the parents and brother up to Steamboat, and while there scoped out several trailheads in hopes of making the trip back once the massive amount of snow melts this spring and summer. It's sure beautiful country up there, unlike any other place I've seen in Colorado. On the way to Steamboat we also made a quick stop at the North Sand Hills, which look like an awesome, giant, 4x4 playground that I can't wait to try out. Here's a few pics to help entice anyone else who might be interested.

view from the western edge of the North Sand Hills...couldn't quite convince my dad to let me take his stock Tahoe on the dunes unfortunately...haha
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=70
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4080022.jpg

seemed strange, but we actually spotted several moose in some trees within the Sand Hills area (look closely, dark spots upper left)
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4080024.jpg

north of Steamboat on Elk River Road
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4100045.jpg

Hahn's Peak from a road near Steamboat Lake
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4100064.jpg

about a mile off of Elk River Road near the tiny town of Columbine where the Hahn's Peak trail begins...we got about a mile in and came to a closed gate that was completely buried in snow and had snowmobile tracks going over the top of it
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=169
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4100069.jpg

locked gate at the beginning of the Seedhouse Road trail that was just plowed by the forest service in the last few days
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=170
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4100076.jpg

Steamboat Springs from Buffalo Pass several miles outside of town...a few miles further up we came to yet another locked gate with snow covering the road beyond it
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=167
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/P4100093.jpg

can't not include the cell phone pic i got of a mother bear and her 2 cubs from the gondola at the ski resort just above the base area!
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt298/kblach86/GetAttachmentaspx.jpg

The only trail in the area we didn't get close to is the Ellis Jeep Trail: http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=168 ...it looks like it might be a fun one as well.

It's mud season in the Steamboat area right now with all the snow melting and creating quite a mess, so it will apparently still be awhile before these trails start opening for the season. I'm definitely excited for that time!

[johngraves2]

Sweet man! Great trip report you put together here. We go by steamboat all the time on the way out to craig so we will probabaly be hitting a few of these trails for something else to do.

[l1r]

Steamboat is great area. I ran Hahn's Peak last summer. Got up about 3/4 way and it started raining. I got scared, since I was running it alone and turned around. Road is pretty rough and rocky and wet rocks were not what I wanted... Of course once I came down rain stopped and it was sunny and bright again :)
There are bunch of other trails I explored as well - they all started right off of main road before you get to Steamboat (can't remember what the highway number was), but one of them is really tippy. Scared the sh!t out of me, thought I was gonna roll sideways. Many great camping spots all along those trails...

[burbnamedbill]

good ol' Murphy's Law w/ the rain eh? yea it sure seems like a great place to spend some time exploring and playing around...i sure can't wait to get back once the walls of snow melt!