Buffalo Bill, Tom Petty & A Hike

Golden, Colorado
Jefferson County Fairgrounds


We had a busy time with Greg and Cori.  One day they took us up to Lookout Mountain where the Buffalo Bill Museum is located as well as his final resting place.

The views up here are beautiful.

 

 

 

Greg, Me, Steve and Cori.

There wasn't too much to the museum.  There were some artifacts and posters and a nice gift shop.  Outside Buffalo Bill has a beautiful resting place at the very top with all the views.

Back down at the parking lot there were a couple of strange guys in the back of a pickup.

"Hey, what are you lookin' at!"

In case you were wondering what the other side looked like.

Groupies!

 

Next up was a Chili Cook Off with lots of beer tasting.

The place was crowded!  There was music and hot chili, spicy chili and sweet chili.  The three of them enjoyed all the beer and we were stuffed by time we decided to head out.  But not before we ran into Camo Guy from the Coors Brewery Tour the other day.  Too bad I could not get a picture.  We were keeping an eye on a very dark cloud the was quickly moving in.  All of a sudden some crazy winds swept in and the temperature got very cold.  We decided to head back to the trailers and warm up.

 

On our last day Greg and Cori took us on a nice drive to the Red Rocks Amphitheater.  The park itself sits at 6,450 feet above sea level, Red Rocks Park is a unique transitional zone where the Great Plains meets the Rocky Mountains.

 

The amphitheater is huge an I can image how great it must be to sit outside with these beautiful red rocks all around you listening to a great concert.

 

Inside there are music rooms and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.  I found Tom Petty's plaques.

Outside there are some hiking trails and we took a little walk up one of them. The color really didn't come through as the sun was heading down but they were really amazing.

 

Our last day we finally did that hike I talked about when we first arrived. Greg stayed behind as he is having knee surgery in a few days. The Golden Summit trail takes you from downtown Golden to its most prominent geological feature, Castle Rock, which has 360-degree views of the Front Range and the Great Plains.  The hike is just under 4 miles.

The trail winds its way up some switchbacks.

If you look closely at the very top you can see some people standing on the top.

 

The hiking was fairly easy except this chute which was a little tricky.

 

Almost at the top.  Just some stairs to climb.

Great views of Golden below on this side.

 

Across the way you can see the "M" at the top of the road. This is the world's largest lighted letter, signifying its allegiance to the Colorado School of Mines. It is a large letter "M" atop the face of Mt. Zion overlooking Golden.  It is made of whitewashed rocks, and measures 104x107 feet, each leg measuring 10 feet wide.

Cori looking very svelte.

You can see the switchbacks of the trail.

This is the view looking over the backside.  You can see Denver in the distance.

A little closer.

Coming down is always more difficult than going up.  What a great way to end our time with Greg and Cori.  We head out towards the far corner of the panhandle of Oklahoma to hike our final High Point of this years trip.  But first we have a castle to climb on.