Boreas Pass/Breckenridge

We wanted a day at high altitude, so I planned a road trip/day of activity for July 3. We started by driving southwest out of Denver on Highway 285 for about an hour or so to the teeny mountain town on Como, a mostly deserted former railroad and mining town set on a high grassland basin called South Park, around 10,000 feet. The huge basin is surrounded by stunning peaks in the distance.

At Como we turned onto the Boreas Pass Road, a wild, beautiful dirt road that started winding up, up, up - it was stunning, breathtaking, amazing -

And then we made it up to Boreas Pass, 11,482 feet. At the pass is an old railroad house and railcar, and a hike out onto the tundra. It was chilly and windy and amazing. I love the tundra - the wildflowers, the shrubs, the views - this is right at tree line, and it's so fascinating how one minute there are small trees and then.... there aren't. We did a short hike, identified some wildflowers (we've been searching for the elusive Little Pink Elephants, Isabel's favorite alpine wildflower; we found the plants, but the flowers had not yet bloomed), and had a picnic lunch-

Then we started the drive down the other side of the pass (going north) and into Breckenridge; there were so many stunning views I didn't even try to capture most of them, but this shows it well-

And then we pulled into Breckenridge, one of my favorite mountain towns. We rode the free gondola up to Peak 8. The gondola is always free in the summer, you can hop on it right near downtown and ride it up and down as you please. Isabel and Brian have some height fears, and although this is a slight recreation of her fears, it is not entirely a stretch. We ended up going up and down a couple of times - the boys LOVED the gondola, especially Mason, and Isabel liked some parts of it better than others. At one point we got a little silly and had an ugliest face contest; we each made the ugliest face we could, took a picture of it, and then we all voted on the ugliest. I won. Or lost, depending on how you look at it. But I cannot reveal the photograph. Just picture Jabba the Hut. Then you're getting close.

There is a Breckenridge summer adventure park at Peak 8 with lots of activities. We had told the kids we were going to get out and walk around the adventure park but not do any of the activities, and as soon as we got off the gondola someone heading down the mountain handed us a couple of all-day passes they were done with, so we let the kids each choose an activity. Isabel (not real physically adventurous) and Mason (very physically adventurous but too young for most things) chose the huge bounce house-

The older boys chose the bungee/trampoline jump thing. It looks so cool set against the tall peaks! They loved this, but Connor was more cautious than I would have imagined, and Lucas was more brave - totally would have called that differently.

Once back in town, we walked around town, played in the river, and got some ice cream cones (Hello? Salted butter caramel? Mmmm hmmmm, that's what I'm talking about)-

I loved that day, every minute of it. Almost as much as the people I spent it with.