Although in the same state, the Southwest Colorado has always felt so out of reach for a regular weekend. Finding a long weekend to make the 6-7 hour drive from Denver has been difficult. This Fourth of July, we were able to steal a long enough weekend to make the trek and we had some exciting adventures planned...

Since we were going to go all the way out to the Southwest corner of Colorado, we wanted to explore Mesa Verde National Park. Every time you pick up an article of all the beautiful sites in Colorado not to be missed, this place is always on the top of the list.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the park consists of approximately 600 ancestral Peubloans (Anasazi) cliff dwellings. Ancestral Puebloans were a group of hunter and gatherers but by 600 AD, they started inhabiting the mesa more permanently for farming, building cliff dwellings and creating larger communities.

At each dwelling site, there are dug-in living spaces called Kivas where gatherings would take place. The Kivas were covered with a roof and hole on top where they climb out of. There is also a place for a fire and ventilation inside each Kiva.

The fun part about visiting the sites is climbing and crawling into and in between the dwellings.

Some tips to visiting the Park:

If you are short on time, you can hire a private guide through Aramark or the Far View Lodge. It was nice to have someone who knows where to meet the rangers for the tour of the dwellings. It was also nice to know which spots to hit up on limited time.
Buy your tickets ahead of time for the dwellings. You have to tour the dwellings with a park ranger.
Allow one hour for each dwelling tour and at least 30 min to 1 hour in between tours to get from one dwelling to another. Otherwise you can buy your tickets at the Visitor Center the day of your visit, but you may not get the times you want or during busy seasons, tickets may run out!

After our time in the Mesa Verde area, we made the 1.5 hr drive to Telluride. We actually stayed in the Mountain Village hotel Madeline. Although perfect in its location near the gondola into town (13 min ride), during the holiday weekend, it would have been better to stay in town. The line was prohibitive on our last day to get back to town to catch the parade or have breakfast.

Telluride was out of this world gorgeous. Set perfectly, in between mountain ranges it is no surprise they call this area of the state the Switzerland of America.

Our first adventure was to climb and traverse the Via Ferrata ("Iron Road" in Italian). Initially developed in Europe during World War I, Via Ferratas helped troops traverse across difficult mountain ranges. Chuck Kroger, a legendary mountaineer, created one in Telluride. Consisting of a series of metal rungs, steel cable and ladders along a face of a mountain, the climber is able to traverse across with a safety of a harness (in some places).

You traverse 2 miles along the wall of the mountain. Some parts have metal rungs and cables you can attach yourself to. Other places, where the path may be relatively more safe, you are not harnessed on a wire.

The "Main Event" is about half-way through the hike where there is absolutely no ledge and you traverse using the metal rungs. The physical nature of the hike/climb was not hard, it was the mental grit you force yourself to have to not freak out about being suspended 500 ft off the basin.

And just when you think the scariest part is over (relatively speaking), you realize there is more climbing, traversing and sketchy hiking to go.

So here is a confession of a couple who appear to be dare-devils. We are fairly risk averse and we always try to do everything we can as safe as possible, including hiring a guide for this climb/hike. With proper equipment, many people can do this climb on their own. But if you have not done it before or are not going with someone who has, we would recommend hiring a guide. There are several in town and I am sure they are all equally good. We chose guides from Mountain Trip. They were awesome, provided us with good equipment, transportation and guidance along the climb/hike. There was never a time I felt unsafe. So shout out to Jason and Dave for an awesome trip!

There are so many hikes to enjoy around Telluride, Ouray, Durango, Ridgeway, etc. There are also a lot of awesome passes and off road adventures to explore. With one more full day, we decided we couldn't pass up an opportunity to bag a 14er in the San Juan mountain range. Mt. Sneffels is a difficult class 2 to 3 hike/climb. It was short, steep and exactly what we were looking for...

The trailhead to Mt. Sneffels was near Ouray. To shorten the hike, we drove as far up as the road would allow us (a little past the lower trailhead and a mile below the upper trailhead). There was still snow on this road this time of year and up to the point we stopped driving, the road got worse, more narrow and needed higher clearance. Personally, I think our Range could have made it, but we didn't want to push our luck.

There are essentially two routes up. The Southwest Ridge (pictured above and to the right). It is a Class 3 scramble. This was the recommended route by an avid mountaineer, but we met a couple of people when we were on the trail who tried this route and had to turn back. There were apparently drop offs that would require jumping on ice below. We decided to take safer Yankee Boy route. It is a hard class 2 that takes you up a steep scree field and then a steep ascent that was still covered in snow.

Although short, the climb was steep; 1700+ ft elevation gain in a little over a mile, with snow still at the top. It seemed over half the people that made the attempt turned back around; mostly unprepared for the terrain and the snow that still covered the last stretch of the climb.

The very last bit required a tricky scramble, but was doable. The views at the top, as usual on a 14er were awesome. You can see Telluride in the background as well as the Blue Lakes down below.

We were so happy we made it up we celebrated with 11 burpees for our 11th 14er. Check out our video below!

We definitely feel like Telluride in the summer has to be an annual thing. You can spend weeks (a lifetime) in the area and still do something different everyday. Until next year!