Colorado | Summer itinerary, in short

Day 1 Getting to Amarillo

Drive from Austin to Amarillo (about 8 hours). Dinner at a Punjabi Affair.

Day 2 Great Sand Dunes National Park

Drive from Amarillo to Great Sand Dunes National Park (about 5 hrs 20 min).
Great Sand Dunes National Park

The dunes from the Medano creek parking lot.

Montville Nature Trail 0.5 miles
Drive up the road a short distance to the parking lot. Park here and walk to the creek and the dunes beyond.
Check out the visitor center. It has a small display, a great view of the dunes and restrooms.
Drive to Zapata Falls about 25 minutes away. Hike short trail about 0.7 miles roundtrip.

Creek near Zapata falls.

Drive to Alamosa about 40 minutes away.
Dinner at Purple Pig Pizza.

Day 3 Breckenridge

Drive from Alamosa to Blue Lakes (2 hrs 45 min)
- Hike to the lake just under the parking lot. Bring water shoes, walk across the water crossing and hike to the waterfall just up ahead.

Blue Lakes, closer to parking lot.

Drive to Breckenridge (about 20 min).
Check into Airbnb
Dinner at Mi Casa Mexican located on a beautiful section of the river with gorgeous landscaping.
Walk over to Higgles Ice Cream a few minutes walk down the Main St.

Day 4 Leadville Train ride

Drive to Leadville about 1 hour away for for train ride on Leadville railroad.
After train ride, have lunch at High Mountain Pies in Leadville.

View from Leadville train ride.

Explore Leadville downtown if time permits.
Drive to Vail, about 45 minutes away. Parking is free in the Vail Village. Explore the beautifully landscaped town from here. Ride Gondola if time permits.

Vail Village

Drive back to Breckenridge.

Day 5 Hoosier Pass, Breck Connect

After a quick breakfast, drive to Hoosier pass trailhead about 20 minutes away. The hike is a moderately difficult 2.8 mile loop.

Hoosier pass loop trail

lunch at Sancho Tacos in Breckenridge
Breck connect gondola up to peak 8.
Dinner at Pho Real vietnamese.
Hike Minnie mine loop trail 1.5 mile loop.

Minnie mine loop trail

Day 6 Maroon Bells, Snowmass Village

Drive to Aspen Highlands village for shuttle to Maroon Bells with stops along the way
- Stop at Twin Lakes Recreational area for a beautiful view of the lakes and surrounding mountains.
- The drive will go through Independence Pass, a gorgeous mountain pass going across the continental divide. This drive was one of the most stunning in Colorado.
- Grottos trail- 0.6 mile loop that takes you though a waterfall and gorgeous river.
- Pick up or have lunch near Aspen.
Take Shuttle to Maroon Bells.
- Hike the Scenic loop trail, an easy 2 mile loop with amazing wildflowers and gorgeous views.
- Option - Hike Crater lake trail if more time in this area.

Maroon Bells

Take shuttle back to Aspen Highlands Village and Drive to Snowmass Village and check in to Hotel.
We had dinner at Grub Thai Restaurant a short walk from our hotel and thoroughly enjoyed it.
- Take the free gondola down to the lower part of the village for more restaurants, walking paths, hotels and shopping. We enjoyed delicious ice cream at Sundae.

Snomass Village Gondola

Day 7 Snowmass and Aspen Gondola

Pack up and check out after breakfast.
Head to Snowmass Gondola. Parking is free in the garage. At the top try some activities at the Lost Forest park like alpine coaster, obstacle courses, mountain biking and many more.

Alpine coaster at Lost forest

Drive down to Aspen. Park anywhere in downtown area as there is no specific parking garage for the gondola. Most street parking is paid.
Pick up a picnic lunch from Big Wrap (or somewhere quicker) if time permits as they usually have a long line.
Take the Aspen Silver Queen Gondola up to Aspen Mountain. If you only have time for 1 Gondola experience, this is the one we recommend. Enjoy expansive view. There is a restaurant, restrooms and hiking at the top as well as a viewing area.

Aspen Mountain

We picked up dinner from Guru’s Nepali restaurant on the way to out Airbnb.

Day 8 Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Drive to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park about 20 minutes away.
Start driving the South Rim scenic drive (7 miles one way). This drove has 12 lookout points some a short walk away and some requiring about a 0.25 mile walk. Stop at the first viewpoint and hike to the left following the Rim Rock Nature trail (this is a closer way to start this trail) about 1.7 miles roundtrip. The trail is an easy walk in good weather but may be challenging in the summer due to extreme heat.

View from Rim Rock Nature Trail

If weather permits stop at as many points as possible, we chose the visitor center, Gunnison Point, Chasm View, Painted wall, Cedar point and Sunset view.
There are no restaurants in the park. We picked up lunch from Taco Bell and enjoyed it on a picnic table with a beautiful view.
After the scenic view drive, we drove down to the river. This drive can take about 15-25 minutes as the drive is steep. We had no issues in our 4X4 SUV and saw many small cars driving the road as well.

View from the bottom of Black Canyon of the Gunnison at the riverside.

Due to the heat, we headed back to our Air BnB in the late afternoon after making a stop at The Root Juice Bar.
From here we picked up dinner again and enjoyed a relaxed evening.

Day 9 Telluride

Drive to Telluride after breakfast (about 90 min).
We went straight to the Bridal Veil Falls Trailhead about 5 minutes outside of town. Parking is limited and we had to wait till someone was leaving. Portable bathrooms available in the parking lot.

Bridal Veil falls view at the end of the trail

This 2 mile roundtrip hike is a rocky, uphill scramble pretty much the entire way up. The trail takes you to two more spectacular falls and the main attraction is unbelievably gorgeous. The trail has some shade but may be challenging in the rain.
After the hike we tried lunch at Caravan Middle Eastern Restaurant. The food was fresh and we enjoyed it on a cosy shaded patio.
Next we walked a few minutes to the gondola station.
This gondola is free. It has 4 stops. We chose to ride it to Mountain Village. restaurants, coffee shops and shopping can be found at this stop. After enjoying some overpriced ice cream and chai, we headed back down to the Telluride station.

Telluride Gondola

From here we picked up dinner in Montrose from Himalayan Pun Kitchen and headed back to our accommodation. The food was mediocre but the portions were large.

Day 10 Ouray, Durango, Pagosa Springs

We packed up and left Montrose to head towards Santa Fe.
We stopped by Ouray, Co (50 min away) for a short hike to Cascade falls (about 0.5 miles roundtrip).

Cascade falls in Ouray

Next we drove the Million Dollar Highway with gorgeous mountain views and steep drop-offs. Once we reached Durango (1hr 40 min away), we stopped for lunch on the Main St at Fired Up Pizza. Ice cream was next to cool off in the middle of the afternoon at Cream Bean Berry.
From here we headed to Pagosa Springs (1 hr away). The city is beautiful with the natural hot springs, river and mountain views. We stopped for coffee and walked to the deepest “mother” hot spring at the Springs Hotel. Tubing, swimming, hiking and soaking in hot springs would be fun here. Since we were short on time, we drove on to Santa Fe.

Pagosa Springs, near the Springs Hotel

Once we reached Santa Fe (just under 3 hrs), we headed straight for dinner at La Choza in the rail yard district as this place is usually quite busy. After our exquisite meal we headed to our hotel for the night

Day 11 Santa Fe

After an amazing breakfast at our hotel, we headed out to the main plaza area. Here we did some shopping of local made chile salsa, sauces and handicrafts before heading to lunch at The Burrito Company. After having our fill of amazing New Mexican food, we headed back to our car to drive to Lubbock (about 5 hours).