Taylor Park, CO with Shawn, Stephanie and Family!

Taylor Park.
Who can resist an off-roading haven a few times a summer!?  We Have the Colorado RZR Rally coming up next month, but just had to go this weekend to truly initiate Kevin's brother Shawn to a really fun time with a RZR.  Shawn's family are renting one so they can see just how fun it is!!  Kevin, Jadeyn and I arrived a day early for a little extra fun!


Aspen.
Would you believe that from Taylor Park, you can take trails all the way into Aspen!?  It took us about and hour and 20 minutes to get there over the mountains, if you drove it by car, it would take just under 5 hour!  Wow!  The wildflowers are in full bloom and the trail was lovely.  Part of the trail took us straight up the river bed!  Good thing we had our guide book because when the trail disappears into a river and you can' see it continue on the other side, well, it can make you wonder a bit if you are going the right direction!  We stopped at the Aspen gondolas for lunch and only felt a bit out of place amongst all the tourists in shorts, t-shirts, yoga pants, etc and us in rain gear and dust! We headed back just in time for the rain to start and once again, we were so grateful for good rain gear.  Once back at camp we were trying to figure out what to do in the afternoon until Shawn's family arrived tonight.  We we partway to Mirror Lake to fish when it started raining again. Humm, what should we do?  We headed back to the trading post just when we finally got through to Shawn and Stephanie.  They wee just pulling in to Taylor Park!!!  We caught up with them and lead the way to camp.  Seriously, at that moment, the rain stopped and didn't drop another drip the rest of the weekend!!!!  These guys are such good luck, we may just take them on every trip we go on!!
 

 We summited Tin Cup Pass, Cumberland Pass, Tomichi Pass and Handcock Pass.  We're used to these high elevations, but still find ourselves a bit winded walking around at above 12,000 feet!

I must say, Shawn and Stephanie both drove like a pro! I think a RZR may just be in their future!  At the end of the trip Stephanie said, "Well, that's the last time we'll rent a RZR with you guys."   Wasn't quite sure exactly what that meant until she added, "He wants one!"  

PinepoleTrail.  
This is a nice smooth trail full of woop-d-woos at the beginning and has some nice places to try and find moose.  We didn't see any, but then, the scenery was kind of all a blur with these boys going so fast!  At the end of a trail are old log cabin remains and some mining structures.  Tons of fun to do at high speeds and to catch a little air!

 At St Elmo, we of course just had to feed the chipmunks!!  We haven't ever been to St Elmo on a Saturday and it was quite busy and those chipmunk were well fed!!!  The hummingbirds were a delight as well!

I love seeing a trail lead up to nowhere in the high mountains!
And yes, I got a little bit close to this sweet little marmot!

 Tellerium Trail. 
Kevin and I had done part of this trail last year and this time we had the time to finish it.  Fun trail with all sorts of various terrain.  Steph and I drove this one.  Kevin didn't tell me that part of the trail was on a skree shelf!  Basically, the entire mountain is loose rock and a narrow strip has been worn level (still kinda loose) by the vehicles.  Its intimidating knowing that one slip and you go tumbling 60 feet down the rocks.  But, we made it and were rewarded by the views at the top.  Peaks all around us, mountain lakes below and even a rather large herd of elk on the mountain across the way literally running.  They looked like a trail of little ants weaving across the mountain face, but going at quite the speed.




 Alpine Tunnel
We explored one of the coolest mountain train tunnels in Colorado.  It has quite the story behind its construction and the years that it was functioning.

 Slaughterhouse Gulch 
This trail is one of the fastest and most terrifying trails I have been.  I'm not kidding when I say frightening, and it's not because of a steep cliff, or a rough trail or any of the expected reasons, its because it so smooth that you can hit it at about 40 mph, so windy, that you can't see around the next bend and so narrow that two vehicles can't pass each other.  Put all those reasons together, and I hope you can see why I'm a happy basket case by the end!!!  This trail winds through the trees and rocks but as it winds it is full of "woop-d-woos" and you catch air about every 50 feet!!!  Jadeyn and Austin in the back of our RZR had their hands in the air like a roller coaster and hollered the whole time!  When we got into the trees where is a steep slope on one side and an incline on the other with no room for error, I made Kevin slow down a bit on the blind corners.  Sure enough, we met some 4 wheelers coming at us and stopped in time before we scared them too badly!  Finally out in the open, still flying fast, we came to the very last water crossing of the trip.  Well, Shawn couldn't let all the brand new rain gear go completely untested...soo...KerSplash!!!!!!  Wow!  A wave twice as high as our RZRs and we all got SOAKED!!!!!  Kevin and I didn't bother with the rain gear, so we really got saturated especially when we filled up the whole cab with water above our boots! (we spent the next few miles with arms and legs hanging out of the RZR to try and dry as much as possible!  As for Shawn and his RZR occupants...dripping and smiling!!  We both went through several more times because, why not, we were already soaked!




We finished off the great weekend with pie and ice cream at Frenchy's Cafe in Tin Cup.  Delicious and then we all got a good laugh over just how filthy we were!!

 Since you can't really read the fine print on these bottles, we found a new delight in Coco Fizz Chocolate Soday, High Mountain BlueBerry Soda, and Frostie Blue Cream Soda!!