Bike tour/Utah and Colorado (Summer 2022)

Alternate pages

/Old: Mika's original alternate plan
/Packing list

Planning page for our hot summer bike tour in Utah and Colorado!

Someone's Salt Lake to Denver trip
direct Google routing from SLC to Breckenridge.

Day -1 ✈️: Seattle → Salt Lake City

Thursday July 28, 2022

Stay: [TODO] hotels are all super reasonable in the $150 range for a DoubleTree! Want to do this? Or something else?
Highest altitude: ~4200ft

Itinerary:

Flight from SEA @ 6:20pm → SLC @ 9:20pm

Resources:

Salt Lake City WikiVoyage

Day 0: Salt Lake City

Friday July 29, 2022

Stay: [To Be Decided], same as previous day

Resources:

Salt Lake City WikiVoyage

Day 1: 🚲 Salt Lake City → Yellow Pine Campground

Saturday July 30, 2022

Stay: Yellow Pine Campground (33 sites; all first come, first served; vault toilets, no water; $20)
Mileage: ~65mi 6200ft or ~60mi and 7100ft
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Alternative Lodging:

Shingle Creek is also first-come/first-served and is 3mi down the road (21 other sites)
Knotty Pine Resort is a private RV park about 14mi back
Should be all National Forest land so dispersed camping should be an option

Question: [Pending]

The Saturday is fully booked at the nearest campground (Soapstone) so it might be worth thinking about staying at Knotty Pine instead. It's much more expensive but we'll get a pool and a hot tub and water and WiFi and probably even power for our phones.

Day 2: 🚲 Yellow Pine Camground → Starvation State Park

Sunday July 31, 2022

Stay: Starvation State Park [TODO]
Mileage: ~44mi (4800 ft)
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Resources:

https://utahstateparks.reserveamerica.com/camping/fred-hayes-state-park-at-starvation/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=UT&parkId=342801#sr_a [lots of availability]
Alternative: Strawberry River Bed and Breakfast in Duchesne (or a best western)

Day 3: 🚲 Starvation → Vernal

Monday August 1, 2022

Stay: [TODO]
Mileage
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Resources:

KOA Tent Camping seems attractive
A bunch of hotels in Vernal

Day 4: 🚲 Vernal → Kenney Resevoir

Tuesday August 2, 2022

Stay: Kenny Resevoir ("For more information on Kenney Reservoir or to make reservations, contact the water district at (970) 675-5055.") [TODO]
Mileage: 63mi 1500ft (pretty flat)
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: [TODO]

Notes:

We'll cross from Utah into Colorado
the more attractive route goes south along 45, changes to old bonanza hwy and crosses along a little unpaved road.
Alternative route going into Bonanza and then Stanton seems doable. It's only 6-7mi more.

Resources:

Day 5: 🚲 Kenney Resevoir → Rifle State Park

Wednesday August 3, 2022

Stay: Rifle State Park [TODO]
Mileage: ~87mi but only 3k feet
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Resources:

kenney resenvoir to rifle gap state park (87 miles (quite long) but only 3k ft

Alternatives:

Elkhaven Lodge is in a better place but it's $300 and minimum 2nights. We could call?
Trail and Hitch RVpark and Tiny Home Hotel has a sauna and wifi and $15 tent spots (Available); sadly, tinyhomes are only available for a 2-night stay. It's only (54mi from kenney) but it sets up a killer 100mi day for the last day assuming we stay in Glenwood Springs.

Day 6: 🚲 Rifle State Park → Wolcott BLM Campground

Thursday August 4, 2022

Stay: Wolcott BLM Campground
Mileage: [To Be Decided]
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Resources:

Itinerary:

Leg 1: 15mi from campground to New Castle
Bus: from New Castle to Glenwood Springs
- Bus from New Castle to to Glenwood Springs on Hogback Rifle route which leaves New Castle 6th and Main 40 minutes after each hour and also 10 minutes after 7am, 8am, 5pm, and 6pm.
- Not all bus stops take bikes but there is a [page about this here] and a map of bike stops here so I think we need to go from the stop on 6th and Main in New Castle to the Park & Ride in Glenwood springs.
- Loading bikes is either a two-bike rack which is the same as metro or a complicated 4-bike rack which is actually two racks and we should load them to the driver side first and then the passanger side.
Pool in Glenwood Springs Hot Springs (open 8am-9pm; kinda pricey at $~39)
Leg 2: 40 mi to Wolcott BLM campground

Alternative would be to stay in a Best Western (or similar) in Eagle. Kinda expensive for what it is, honestly!

Resources:

It's hard to do given the 100 mi to Breckenridge but It would be nice to stay in Glenwood Springs for the night since there's a hot spring there but it sets up a pretty rough day.

Glenwood resources:

If we stay in glenwood, there is a "resort" with camping sites although they are quite expensive ($67) so a hotel might be easier.
Hotels in Glenwood Springs are werdly expensive. the "best" hotel is a 3-star Hotel Denver is that is like $250 for the night.

Day 7: 🚲 Wolcott BLM Campground → Breckenridge

Friday August 5, 2022

Stay
Mileage
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

The first thing with emma is 5-9pm so it would be good to arrive as close to 5pm as possible. if we do 100 we'll want to be rolling by like 6am.

Option a: if we stay in glenwood, it's a little under 100 mi into breckenridge (and 5.6k feet of climbing. Basically the first 80 seems like a gradual river valley climb).. it's possible and it's the last day so might be OK?
If we stay in Eagle or Wolcott it would be just 70 or 60 mi into breckenridge the next day.

Resources:

Day 7+1: Wedding!

Stay
Mileage
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Day 7+2: 🚌 Breckenridge → Denver

Stay: [TODO]
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Itinerary:

[TODO] bus ticket (buy tickets)
4:20pm: Meow Wolf Convergence Station (tickets are in Google Pay) [arrive 10min early]
7pm: Dinner reservations at Uchi Denver at the counter (award winning sushi joint with a vegetarian tasting menu)

Epic Mountain Express seems to give a discount: "Book reservations at least 48 hours prior to travel. Reservations made the same day of travel are subject to a $5/per person fee. Accepting reservations through 10/31/2022"

Vail/DIA times: 7:00 am / 9:15 am 8:30 am / 10:45 am 10:00 am / 12:15 pm 11:30 am / 1:45 pm 3:00 pm / 5:15 pm

Day 7+3: ✈️ Denver → Seattle

Stay: [To Be Decided]
Food: breakfast?; lunch ?; dinner ?
Weather: Hot (>30C).

Places to visit

Arches National Park
Dark Sky Parks - parks where you can see lots of stars
Canyonlands National Park
The Narrows in Zion National Park