Rode the MAX!

Finally rode the MAX downtown with the kids.  We biked from the house to the South Transit Center and locked up our bikes there.  The kids were disappointed that our first bus wasn't the extra long green one. My daughter kept telling me that we weren't on the 'MAX' yet so I was glad that we were able to catch the official green one on the way back.

You are able to have 4 bikes inside on the long, green buses and three on the outside of the other buses. Personally, I don't think that's enough since they were filled on our trip during the summer with CSU out of session.

After getting off at the Mountain Street Station we walked over to the Oak Street water feature, then headed towards the Clothes Pony/Dandelion Toys.  Stopped in at the Perennial Garden and found a water feature I must have then we checked out all the ice cream stores downtown.  The kids decided to go for Ben & Jerry's.

 It was yummy...but my Green Chili Beer at Coopersmith's was even better!

 We loaded back on the bus at the Mountain Street station and the kids had fun pretending to buy tickets.

 We did stop at the Spring Creek station to go over the couple of million dollar bike/pedestrian overpass.  The views were nice from the top.

 The views were nice from the top.

For our family this convenience will probably only be a novelty since it's 3 miles to get to the bus and only about 5-6 miles to get downtown.  It's far faster to just bike downtown for us even though it was a fun day outing for the kids.  

Urban Hiking Mile High

We decided to take the kids down to Denver to see the 'skyscrapers' and explore the city a little. We'd been to Denver with them before but only to the zoo and museums.  We parked near the newish art museum and walked from there.  One of these days I need to stop in and check out their exhibits. The outside sculptures provided entertainment.

Our next stop was the park/mall area (Civic Center Park) around the State Capitol.  It has a huge homeless population so beware.  The kids didn't seem to notice them.  

View of Capitol from front steps.  They are currently working on the gold dome so we didn't get to see anything but a white cover.

Inside:

The rotunda....again covered due to work.

Walking down the 16th Street Mall.  Taken before security told us we weren't allowed to climb on the sign.  Personally, it looks like something meant to be climbed!

Riding the free bus so we didn't wear the kids out.

Fun photo shot:

Going in the ?? building to view the city from above.

View from the ?? floor:  That's Coor's field.  

Mountainside view w/ Invesco Field.  A little Bronco's fan was made happy at the site of this.

For old times sake we stopped at P.F. Chang's for lunch.  I know there are some awesome places to eat but that use to be our treat when we went to Denver and we knew the kids would like it.

Lunch was made even more exciting by all the traffic and noise (see fire truck below) surrounding the restaurant.

On the way back to the car we stopped to view some major construction.

Downtown Denver

Trails Used:  Art Museum to 16th Street Mall, bus, walk back

Distance:  4.78 miles
Difficulty: Easy

Hidden Lake and Sunrift Gorge

Went for a run towards Johns Lake this morning.  Started on the cedar trail for a bit and then headed towards the lake.  I was pretty worried about bears since I was all by myself, running, and had no bear spray. Probably not the smartest but I wanted to maintain the shape I was in for entirety of this trip.

Run: Johns Lake

Trails Used:  Avalanche Campground to Cedar Trail, to Avalanche Lake Trail to Johns Lake

Distance: 4.91 miles

Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 5.5 mph
Overall Time: 0 hrs, 53 mins
Total Ascent: 856 ft.

 

Started the morning off at Lake McDonald Lodge for breakfast.  Save your money and go somewhere good when you leave the National Park system.  This makes three for three of yucky meals in the National Parks!  This was by far the worst.

 

 

 

 

They had an inedible, rubbery, barely warm breakfast buffet.  Luckily, they let the kids onto our ticket ($13.70 each) so we didn't have to pay for them too.  Then I would have felt really bad.  It is a shame since the lodge itself has a nice ambiance. 

 After breakfast we headed out on the bus for Logan Pass.

 

The views 

 

from the top of Logan Pass are outstanding.  This mountain feature is called The Wall:

 

It was a cool and windy day to do the Hidden Lake overlook but we decided to go ahead with it.

 

 

The kids had a great time hiking through the snow, sliding on their butts, and throwing snowballs at each other.  It almost made them forget they were hiking.

 

We saw many mountain goats.

 

 

 

They didn't seem to find it worrisome that all these people were up there climbing around.  I got some great photos of everyone around the goats.

 

 

Overall, the trail was wet, snow packed, and busy.  The view was nice

 

but not too different from what we can see in Colorado so I don't know if I'd recommend the trail or not.  There are so many cool trails to do in Glacier I would personally opt for another.

 

Hike: Hidden Lake Overlook

Trails Used:  Hidden Lake Overlook Trail

Distance: 2.85 miles

Difficulty: Moderate (it is tough walking through the snow)
Overall average: 1.5 mph
Overall Time: 1 hr, 53min
Total Ascent: 680 ft.

When we were done hiking we headed down the east side of the pass for the first time just to check some things out.  We learned that the bus that was so awesome on the west side is awful on the east.  We ended up waiting 40 minutes in the cold wind at the top of Logan Pass before we finally were able to get on a bus.  We took it to the Sun Rift Gorge stop

 

 

and walked down to the Baring Falls.

Hike: Sun Rift Gorge

Trails Used:  Baring Falls Trail

Distance: .43 miles

Difficulty: Moderate
Overall average: 2.0 mph
Overall Time: 0 hrs, 12 min
Total Ascent: 313 ft.

 

 

Had to wait another 20 minutes to catch the bus back up to Logan Pass.  On the west side it seemed like there were buses every 5 minutes.  C has still yet to figure out which way the binoculars go.

 

 When we finally made it home we had taco noodles.

We put the kids to bed and started packing everything up for the big move to the east side the next day.