Summer Fun in Steamboat Springs, Colorado

This was our third summertime trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and we had a great time as always.  We did a couple of hikes, a bike ride, and two amazing tubing trips down the Yampa river.  Check out all my photos below.  Kim took a few photo sets too: one, two, three, and four.


A shot from our Mad Creek hike.


GPS trail from our Mad Creek hike, but I forgot to give it a couple minutes to get a location lock at the start of the hike (since moving the phone from PA to CO), so it's off by a bit at the beginning.


Tubing on the Yampa River. This was so awesome that we did it twice in one week.


Tubing on the Yampa River. Smiles all around.


This is the rapids by 13th street, at the northwest end of town. There's also a small waterfall on the rocks in the shadows.


Sitting on a rock in the middle of the Yampa, taking a break from tubing.


Getting out and into the water, at a deep spot.


I liked the way this one turned out. Not bad for a disposable waterproof camera.


Still tubing.


You'll have to check out the full-size version of this one to see us, but here we are floating through the rapids near 13th street. Kim's mom took this photo from the bridge.


Looking downstream at the Yampa, and the Sleeping Giant in the distance, from the James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Bridge.


The start of our Fish Creek Falls hike. Only 5 miles to Long Lake! We can totally do this. Or not.


An especially nice section of trail along the Fish Creek Falls hike.


Looking back down into the valley on our Fish Creek Falls hike.


More beautiful surroundings along the Fish Creek Falls hike.


(video)

Kim and Heidi scaling a bit of a huge rock face during the Fish Creek Falls hike.


(video)

Heidi coming down off a huge and pretty steep rock face, during our Fish Creek Falls hike.


Huge rock face along the Fish Creek Falls hike.


That's the trail in the lower-right corner of the photo.


A giant rock slide on the opposite side of the valley.


Another shot looking back down into the valley.


The first waterfall on the upper section of the trail.


(video)

The waterfall and some water pools below it.


Another view of the first waterfall on the upper section of the Fish Creek Falls trail.


(video)

Heidi getting down into the water. I wanted to do the same thing, but the day wasn't very warm.



This map near the parking area shows the huge elevation gain on the trail up to Long Lake.


This is the GPS trail of our route. Sadly, we didn't even make it halfway to Long Lake. We hiked about 1500 vertical feet (from 7473'-9027') over about 2.5 miles in 2 hours, at which point it was getting kind of late and a bit rainy, so we turned around, for a total of 5 miles in 4 hours.