Hiking above Buena Vista, Colorado

June 24, 2010.


Another beautiful day in Buena Vista, the "banana belt" of Colorado. Joyce and I decided to go for a hike today. My father and Karen had plans to drive to Aspen.


Joyce and I started off with a short hike near the Midland Railroad Tunnels.

However most of the trail we started on was closed due to nesting birds. So we had to give up doing a long hike at the Midland Tunnels.

We drove into Buena Vista and stopped at the visitor center to find information on a hike in the local area. We were referred to the Barbara Whipple Trail and the Midland Bike Trail at the east end of Main Street. The trail head starts with a small bridge over the Arkansas River. There was a group of rafters preparing to launch so we waited till they launched to get some pictures.

On the trail, the climb was moderate for us flatlanders at a starting elevation of 8K feet and climbing over 350 ft. We did a combination of the Barbara Whipple Trail and the Midland Bike Trail.

The views on the trail were breathtaking as we looked down on Buena Vista.

Below looking West is the historic Main Street of Buena Vista.

We obviously are not accustomed to the altitude as we were breathing hard just from hiking and climbing. We hiked for about 2.5 miles completing the loop and then headed back to Rubi (the jeep).

The rest of the day, we made preparations to move to another campground. We wanted to extend for another week, but the campground had already rented our sites.