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Colorado’s Top 13 Family Vacation Ideas for Summer 2013

Summer is just around the corner and you don’t need to look far to have a world-class vacation with your family. From theater hikes to Outhouse Races to free events galore, we have the inside scoop on All Things Colorado.

Aspen/Snowmass

It may be summertime but Snowmass has returned to the Ice Age with the Snowmass Ice Age Discovery Center that features the most significant Ice Age ecosystem find in Colorado history (and it’s free). Touch a mastodon tooth, marvel at a half-sized 6-foot Wooden Mammoth Skeleton, do a dig of your own or a daily Ice Age Discovery Hike by Environment Studies. Visit the Snowmass Rodeo on Wednesday nights (June 12- August 28) and sign up your kids for the Calf Scramble and Mutton Busting. Ride the Elk Camp Gondola up Snowmass Mountain where the Elk Camp Restaurant will open for activities including downhill biking, dinner, campfires, live music, movies, Stryder Park and Kid’s Playground on Friday evenings. Try your hand at some slopeside bowling at the new bowling alley below Venga Venga Cantina featuring eight full-sized lanes, a lounge area with full bar, wood-fired oven pizzas, upscale bar food and more. Then, get inspired at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, a stellar place for kids of all ages to take workshops that include sculpture, photography, painting, beading, and mask-making.

Click here to read about all the other fun Colorado towns.

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New Backcountry Hut Stunning

The man who was instrumental in expanding one of the renowned backcountry ski-hut systems surrounding Aspen was honored Thursday with completion of a new hut that bears his nickname.

Opa’s new hut is stunning. It’s tucked into a granite-lined niche at 12,000 feet. While standing on the expansive deck facing due south, it only takes a subtle turn to see it from Grizzly Peak east of Aspen to Taylor Peak, which looms to the hut’s west. Jagged peaks are planted everywhere between.

The hut is about 6.5 miles southeast of Ashcroft and about 1.5 miles southeast of the summit of Taylor Pass. It’s roughly half way between the Friends Hut and the Goodwin-Green Hut.

“When I look at the system, I think of this as the center of the web,” said Hawk Greenway, longtime manager of the Alfred A. Braun Hut System. Opa’s Taylor Hut is located within 4.5 to six miles of five other huts in the system, so it will be integrated into multiday trips, he said.

Like all huts in the Braun system, Opa’s won’t be for the casual backcountry traveler. Nearly all the routes to Braun huts cross big avalanche paths. The huts also can be difficult to find. There are no trail signs.

Opa’s hut is burrowed into a granite outcropping. It’s invisible from the northwest until travelers are upon it. The most direct route during the summer, via Express Creek Road and another forest route from the summit of Taylor Pass, most definitely isn’t a route backcountry skiers will want to take because of avalanche danger, said Greenway and David Swersky, a member of the hut system’s board of directors.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Pot Votes in CO Raise Specter of Weed Tourism

Hit the slopes — and then a bong?

Marijuana legalization votes this week in Colorado and Washington state don’t just set up an epic state-federal showdown on drug laws for residents. The measures also open the door for marijuana tourism.

Both marijuana measures make marijuana possession in small amounts OK for all adults over 21 — not just state residents but visitors, too. Tourists may not be able to pack their bowls along with their bags, but as long as out-of-state tourists purchase and use the drug while in Colorado or Washington, they wouldn’t violate the marijuana measures.

Of course, that’s assuming the recreational marijuana measures take effect at all. That was very much in doubt Friday as the states awaited word on possible lawsuits from the U.S. Department of Justice asserting federal supremacy over drug law.

So the future of marijuana tourism in Colorado and Washington is hazy. But that hasn’t stopped rampant speculation, especially in Colorado, where tourism is the No. 2 industry thanks to the Rocky Mountains and a vibrant ski industry.

The day after Colorado approved recreational marijuana by a wide margin, the headline in the Aspen Times asked, “Aspendam?” referring to Amsterdam’s marijuana cafes.

Colorado’s tourism director, Al White, tried to downplay the prospect of a new marijuana tourism boom. “It won’t be as big a deal as either side hopes or fears,” White said. Maybe not. But many are asking about marijuana tourism.

Ski resorts are “certainly watching it closely,” said Jennifer Rudolph of Colorado Ski Country USA, a trade association that represents 21 Colorado resorts.

The Colorado counties where big ski resorts are located seem to have made up their minds. The marijuana measure passed by overwhelming margins, with more support than in less visited areas.

The home county of Aspen approved the marijuana measure more than 3-to-1. More than two-thirds approved marijuana in the home county of Colorado’s largest ski resort, Vail. The home county of Telluride ski resort gave marijuana legalization its most lopsided victory, nearly 8 in 10 favoring the measure.

“Some folks might come to Colorado to enjoy some marijuana as will be their right. So what?” said Betty Aldworth, advocacy director for the Colorado marijuana campaign.

Marijuana backers downplayed the impact on tourism. Aldworth pointed out that pot-smoking tourists wouldn’t exactly be new. Colorado ski slopes already are dotted with “smoke shacks,” old mining cabins that have been illicitly repurposed as places to smoke pot out of the cold. And the ski resort town of Breckenridge dropped criminal penalties for marijuana use two years ago.

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It’s Time For Aspen’s Fall Display

Hints of autumn came early to the mountains surrounding Aspen this year. Then, suddenly, the show was on.

Pockets of aspens in the high country were flashing gold by late August, and the trees on the slopes of Buttermilk were bathed in autumn’s glow by the first week of September, leading to predictions of an early display and dispelling worries that drought would cancel the spectacle altogether.

This year’s colors are easily about a week ahead of last year’s pace, when local mountains put on one of the best shows in recent memory.

The peak weekend could be this one, but it appears that the weekend of Sept. 22 and 23 could be spectacular, as well. Certainly, it seems likely the autumn display is likely to hit its zenith sometime within the coming week.

At the Maroon Bells, where photographers line the shore come fall, the grove of aspens in the bowl at the base of the peaks is hitting its prime, but there are plenty of stands of still-green aspens intermixed with pockets of solid gold elsewhere around Maroon Lake.

Click here to read the entire article.

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National Publisher Buys Aspen Magazine

Aspen Magazine has a new owner. National magazine publisher Modern Luxury announced Monday that it has acquired Aspen Magazine, which launched in 1973. Janet O’Grady, the previous owner, will remain the editor-in-chief, according to a statement.

“Aspen Magazine is the perfect addition to the Modern Luxury brand and its portfolio of titles,” O’Grady said in the statement. “The cities where Modern Luxury has strong titles, like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Dallas and Houston, for instance, also happen to be Aspen’s biggest markets, a fact very important to both our local and national advertisers.

“I’m excited to be part of a company that is bullish on great content and print and is staying ahead of the curve in integrating print with digital platforms in these game-changing times. I look forward to continuing to curate and discover the best choices for our loyal readers.”

Aspen Magazine is part of Modern Luxury’s expansion plans that include the launching of a magazine in the Hamptons next summer. Modern Luxury currently publishes 40 titles in 12 of the U.S.’ most affluent cities.

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USA Pro Cycling Comes to Aspen, Breck, Steamboat, Vail in 2013

USA Pro Challenge officials unveiled the 2013 host cities. After a year off, Steamboat Springs will host the Stage 3 finish August 21 and the Stage 4 start August 22. Steamboat the finish of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge host in 2011. USA Pro Cycling Challenge attracts some of the best cyclist in the world and it definitely puts Colorado on the map for pro cycling.

The 2013 host cities and stages are:

Aug. 19 — Stage 1: Aspen/Snowmass Circuit
Aug. 20 — Stage 2: Aspen/Snowmass to Breckenridge
Aug. 21 — Stage 3: Breckenridge to Steamboat Springs
Aug. 22 — Stage 4: Steamboat Springs to Beaver Creek
Aug. 23 — Stage 5: Vail Time Trial
Aug. 24 — Stage 6: Loveland to Fort Collins
Aug. 25 — Stage 7: Denver Circuit

When this caravan of cycling excitement came through in 2011, the city was electric and the races were quite a spectacle. Click here for more info on the USA Pro Challenge.

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For $1,500, Locals Can Leave Their Mark on Bike Sharing Program

An Aspen bike sharing program set to launch in May has secured about two-thirds of the $650,000 in necessary start-up costs from the government and from private businesses or foundations. Its founder is hoping the community can come through with the rest by “adopting” and personalizing individual bikes.
For $1,500, a person or group of people can inscribe a message on the fender of one bike, where it will stay for five years. Or, you could adopt four bikes for $5,000.
Bike sharing programs are now active in 450 communities worldwide, allow anyone to check out a bike from a solar-powered, fully-automated, credit-card-accepting kiosk and return it to any other kiosk. WE-Cycle is planning to offer a day pass for between $5 and $8 but the program is designed for each trip to be 30 minutes or less. While a day pass allows a rider to check out a bike multiple times in a day, the user incurs more charges if the bike is away from a kiosk for more than 30 minutes at a time. That way, the program will not compete with bike shops’ rental business, and in fact, WE-Cycle kiosks and bikes will direct people to area bike shops, she said.

Click here to read the entire article.

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Luxe Camping in Aspen a High-Altitude Alternative to Glitzy Cocktail Parties

Leave it to the creative minds of Aspen to come up with a ritzy wilderness experience that is so in tune with the lifestyles of the rich and famous who play there that rather than luxury camping, they’ve dubbed this overnight under the stars as “glamping.”

Summer visitors in the Rocky Mountain playpen can put away their Chanel and Hermés labels for a night of wilderness lite thanks to the Aspen Skiing Co.

Click here to read details of the Glamping Experience.

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