The following summary was written by Sascha Bates. This was Sascha's second tour; she also joined us in Switzerland in 2000.

I’d been riding the last 20 minutes with my nose pressed to the window and all I could think was, where are the mountains? Crop circles, rivers, highways, even some forest were all visible in abundance, but no mountains. I thought Colorado was crawling with mountains, but I’ve been known to be wrong.  After all, I’m so geographically impaired that I actually consulted a map to find out just which one of those squares out west was actually Colorado.

It turns out that Denver itself is quite flat although it’s by no means close to sea level. After three days acclimatizing (I live at about 1200 feet above sea level), I drove to Denver International Airport to meet the tour. About half the group was there while the other half would meet us in Frisco. Barrie and Terry in their blue Zephyr t-shirts herded us through the terminal and into the vans for the drive into Frisco. The journey from Denver over the mountains is fabulous. In Denver, the clouds and smog obscure the mountains until you near the city limits. Then the view slowly opens up, and the foothills surround you as you as you leave the city behind. Eventually real mountain peaks come into view and every few miles there is a road sign for historic sites like Buffalo Bill’s grave and the Georgetown Railroad and mining community. The highway goes steadily up for over an hour until you come to the Eisenhower Tunnel which bores right under Loveland Pass at 11,158 feet. After that it’s all downhill to Frisco where we met Kris, the last of our three guides and the other 5 members of the tour party.

Frisco is a small town in a cluster of small towns surrounding the Dillon Reservoir, composing one of the prettier and less pretentious resort areas in Colorado (I say this after having also seen Aspen and Vail). There are two sides to Frisco: the cheerful small town run by friendly locals brewing their own beer, running the local organic health food store and locally owned coffee shops. That’s the part of Frisco we stayed in, at a charming bed and breakfast with all the modern amenities, including a communal kitchen, cookies always left out for guests and home-cooked breakfast every morning.

Then there’s the dark side of Frisco. The dark side is a few miles away and contains fast food, a Wal-Mart and, of course, the resident Starbucks. You’ll never see the dark side though unless you run out of film. Then you need to convince the guides that it’s possible to weather a trip to the dark side. Watch out for Terry—he fears the dark side and doesn’t like to go to Wal-Mart; but he’s drawn to Starbucks.

The sky took on an ominous tone as we gathered in the sitting room that first day for introductions, welcomes, and the route talk on the Dillon Reservoir trail. From New York there was Devon, a nutritionist; Rob and Jennifer were newlyweds from Connecticut; John from Pennsylvania; Mike and Pat Knauss, a doctor and nurse from Missouri; Rick from Boston; Ronen from Florida; Chris from Southern California; and then four of us from the Twin Cities: Richard and Diane Madlon-Kay, Phil Thompson and me.

Even as thunder rumbled we put on our skates and blithely ignored the fact that it could rain heavily any second. The trouble with Summit County (and possibly every other mountain area in Colorado) is that you never really know. It’s always going to rain somewhere in the afternoon, but whether it’s right on top of you, twenty miles or twenty feet away, no one can say.  Eventually, one develops a “whatever” attitude about the rain.

The long route that day was 22 miles from Frisco to Keystone and back again. Richard, Devon and I opted for the long route and started out right from the hotel together. Most of the others decided on the medium route, which included a shuttle to the midway point. No doubt eyeing the rain clouds, a few just stuck around for the skate clinic and practiced in the street next to the Inn. The trail is a pretty one with ups and downs snaking through the woods and around a long edge of the reservoir itself. I only saw about the first six miles or so as I tired of the rain and skated back with the medium route crowd when I ran into them.

Dinner that night was preceded by a wine and cheese affair hosted by the guides. Dinner itself was a fabulous buffet catered for us right at the Inn by a one man catering band. Afterwards, most of us gathered in the sitting room to clean the water out of our skates and make sure the wheels spun freely. Bob was the only one with any real trouble. His bearings had frozen solid after skating on wet pavement.  Luckily, he had cleverly brought another set with him and was able to find a skate shop in the dark side of Frisco the next day.

Day 2 with Zephyr was a day of adventures for the whole team. Long route was Frisco-Breckenridge-Copper Mountain-Frisco (36 miles).  Richard, Diane and Devon started out on the full long route while most of us decided on the custom route option that started a few miles out of Frisco at Farmer’s Corner. The skate clinic was also held at Farmer’s Corner, thus cutting out a scenic section rife with short steep hills. Jennifer and Chris worked with Barrie on braking technique while John and Rob worked on stride technique. I stood around, listened to the lecture and took pictures.  By the sound of her brake echoing off the mountains, Chris was making awesome progress with her braking. After the clinic we lit out for Breckenridge—all except Rick and Ronen who were uninterested in the Breckenridge option at all and had set out straight to Copper Mountain from Frisco.

The trip to Breckenridge was sunny, smooth, scenic and (I found later), imperceptibly uphill.  After arriving in Breckenridge without incident, Barrie skated the town looking for excitement while the rest of us basked in the sun near a fountain. I was also keeping an eye on some threatening clouds coming in over the mountain. Richard, Devon and Diane had already passed us on their way back out of town. As the clouds drew closer, Rob, John and I decided we’d race them back to Farmer’s Corner. Everyone else decided in favor of the van. We literally flew out of Breckenridge. I hadn’t realized how uphill the trail had been until we flew home. > I did the math and found we did the distance back in a third of the time it took us to go out. The rain did catch us but only by about 2 blocks.

After that we went back to the Inn where it hadn’t rained at all in Frisco. Rick and Ronen were still gone and Richard, Kris and Devon had continued on to Copper Mountain. After a trip to the dark side for film, coffee and bearings, Terry shuttled Rob, Diane and me up to Copper Mountain in order to get all the fun of that trail with none of the work. Little did we realize that the gods punish those looking for the easy way out.

At the top of the trail we met Barrie eating her lunch! As we started down, I felt the inevitable drops of rain. But I was getting used to it already and was unconcerned as the trail began its downward trend. The trail from Copper to Frisco is steep enough that stroking is not required to get home. However, unless you’re Rob, you’d better know how to use your brake. Rob used to be a pilot in the military and it really showed in his skating style! As it started raining harder, I increased my braking friction and was soon passed by Rob—a much braver soul than I, he was crouched down and bombing all the way back to Frisco.

The wrath of the gods soon was upon us in the form of hail from the storm clouds. This was completely unexpected and rather shocking, but I went with it and thanked Zephyr for making me wear my helmet. I resolved that if it grew larger than the stinging pea sized hail, I would find a tree to hide behind, but it never did. Eventually I spotted a trailside bathroom where Barrie, Diane and I waited out the rest of the rain. We made it back to Frisco after that with little incident, where again it hadn’t rained! > So much for cheating down the hill! Everyone soon converged on the Inn, including Rick and Ronen who informed us that they’d attempted to skate to Vail. We all piled in the vans and headed to Leadville.

Leadville, which sits at 10,200 feet above sea level, is the highest incorporated city in the US. The first thing I noticed is the aura of sad neglect over the town balanced by a feeling of pride in their roots emanating from the locals. > The resort aura of previous towns plays no role in Leadville. This was a working town from the time the area was first settled and everything there reflects that; the pitiless reality of down and dirty, grubbing in the hills for a bit of silver, scraping an existence in a harsh mountain area that knows the smell of snow year round. The town existed to give the miners a place to spend their cash and is now peppered with the remains of brothels, gambling halls and saloons. > The veneer of tourism spreads thin over Leadville. If you roam the streets you’ll see the abandoned cribs, tiny shacks where 12 year old girls received anywhere from twenty-five cents to a dollar for every man they processed, all of which went to the madam that managed them, the old brothel where Doc Holiday dealt Faro and saloons where the original bars are still intact and bullet holes from famous gunmen/gunfights are a big item. [Webmaster's note: I love Leadville for its small-town atmosphere and Wild West look. You will have to make your own judgement.]

We lodged in the Hotel Delaware, remodeled in a fashion designed to resemble its appearance during Leadville’s boomtown days. The lobby area is spacious with antique sofas and chaise lounges and the hallways have antique vanities at intervals. The rooms are unique in shape and design, sporting steam heat registers, brass beds, dim lighting and brick walls. The beds are good sized and comfy and the mountain view out the windows can’t be beat. The heat came in one size only, so we opened the windows both nights for a mix of fresh air and toasty heat, and had to fiddle with the faucet in the shower to keep from being alternately scalded and frozen. > Best of all, there was a coffee shop right across the street. Mornings are always a little better when diluted with espresso.

Before dinner we walked down the street and toured an old saloon and brothel where Doc Holiday lived and dealt Faro in the gambling hall beneath the brothel. The woman who owns the “museum” contained a fascinating spectrum of knowledge about Doc Holiday, the madam who ran the brothel upstairs and various important personages who’d lived in Leadville over the boomtown years. We were also introduced to a recurring theme in Colorado history: ghosts. Ghosts are everywhere in Colorado and the locals take them for granted in both Leadville and Glenwood Springs. However, that first evening we just thought the woman was a little kooky as she told us about her resident ghosts, a mischievous little girl who likes to show up in photos, a stranger who stands at the top of the stairs and a gunman who appears in the gambling hall downstairs. According to her, the time to see ghosts in Leadville is at dusk and dawn. They appear to be doing ordinary things but can be differentiated from locals by their anachronistic clothing. > Apparently they also come out in force whenever there’s a local festival.

Dinner that night was across the street from the hotel at the local brewpub followed by another social evening of skate and bearing maintenance for those of us who’d skated in the rain earlier that day in Frisco. > Most interesting story at dinner goes to Rick and Ronen who chronicled their attempt to skate to Vail via the trail to Copper Mountain. > They made it quite a few miles up there but were finally forced to turn back by the altitude and steep grade of the climb. Barrie thanked them graciously for confirming her suspicions that the trail to Vail was not skateable.

Tuesday we skated the MBT, a 12.2 mile loop that circles Leadville and climbs 1000 feet into the hills before dropping back down again—one continuous up and one continuous down. This trail is a recently converted rail bed that used to service the silver mines encircling the town. We knew the hillage would be rough that day. > Chris and Jennifer opted to rent bicycles and the Knausses skated up the hill the opposite way for a look at the most scenic parts of the trail while not having to commit themselves to the entire loop. The rest of us started in the prescribed starting spot, including all three guides who would be skating with us that day. We started in the middle of the downhill part of the trail, which meant for most of us a gradual brake down around the bottom of the town. > I left town with Phil just behind me. Rick, Ronen, Devon, John, Richard and Diane were all ahead of us already. The climb began as the town gave way to wilderness and continued for many miles (it felt like forever).

At that altitude, skating up 1000 feet over six miles is a serious challenge. I was passed by Terry pretty early, lost Phil after a while and caught up with Richard and Diane during one their rest stops. Through my unique skating style of never stopping I was able to keep a fairly steady pace. I skated for as long as my lungs would allow, then coasted off the edge and walked up the side until I’d caught my breath again. It’s a nice way to travel in those conditions and also gives your leg muscles a variety over the long climb. You might say this was cheating, but until you’ve skated this trail and not just read about it, say it very quietly.

Eventually I caught up with John who’d lagged behind our superstars and the two of us made our gradual way up the endless hill. We regrouped with Kris, Barrie, Phil, Richard, Diane, Terry, Rob and Jennifer at a spot near the top. We’d been skating through a wooded area up to that point, through a cloudy but windless morning. As we skated on through a more level but still uphill area, the terrain began to change. Or maybe I should say the environment began to take on a more settled aura. We could see a road and a couple of shacks down the embankment a ways and, as we continued, we ran into mounds of dirt and some mysterious structures that belonged to the mining days of years gone by. It was Tuesday and the trail was deserted; no one but us on the trail, no cars driving down the road, no planes overhead, nothing bigger than a chipmunk anywhere to be seen.

The whole thing was creepy and had the feel of a construction site on a Sunday afternoon. Spooky quiet but like the workers could come back the next day and start working again. There are shacks and towers, slag heaps, rock piles and ponds shaded in reds and browns in varying states of decay all along the upper length of the Mineral Belt Trail. The trail actually runs right next to the Matchless mines at one point. Everything is so ordered and picked up that you expect the workers to pop up at any moment, but the mines are empty and the only sound is the buzzing of thousands of grasshoppers. The experience is eerie and brings home the ghosts of Leadville and the mining history of Colorado the way nothing else does. 11,000 feet above sea level with the mountains on all sides of you and only the black strip of trail to lead you back to civilization.

Before I skated the Mineral Belt Trail, Leadville was just an old, economically depressed town with a feeling of desperate survival, grasping at tourist dollars to delay its eventual extinction. Once I’d felt the desolate poignancy of the abandoned mines, the area assumed an aura of depth and history that isn’t immediately apparent upon arrival. It reminds me how young our culture really is and how close we still are to the violent years of our great-grandparents. The gold rush was only 150 years ago. The western movie/novel genres have deadened us to that culture and helped relegate it to the realm of fantasy for most people. Many find it easy to dismiss the Old West as ancient history. Emotionally, I’d never felt so close to my own cultural history as I did that morning.

Most of us stopped with one lap on the trail, but Barrie, Kris, Devon and Ronen went back up around the other way for another pass. After walking around town, we shuttled over to the Twin Lakes area for a hike around a lake over to a ruined resort called Interlaken. The hike was through a wooded area rich with photo opportunities. Jennifer, Rob and I lagged behind the rest of the group and consumed film recklessly to record the area. Amazingly, it never rained on us—not once all day. Instead of hiking, John and Terry went to the National Mining Museum where they learned that everything comes from Mining. Everything.

Dinner that evening was at a place called simply, The Grill. We ate Mexican and drank margaritas. The food was great and the service fabulous; a great place for dinner. > Some of us finished the night with a trip to the Silver Dollar Saloon for a few drinks and some shuffleboard. We met a couple from France who challenged our players to shuffleboard and kicked their butts. They were riding rented Harleys across the US. > A footnote to the Saloon: the ladies bathroom there is not to be missed. Check it out when you’re there.

Wednesday morning found us packing up our gear once again in preparation for a 4-hour shuttle and 5,000 foot (net) descent to Glenwood Springs via Independence Pass. This was also the day that we purchased 16 Powerball Lottery tickets in preparation for the 89 Million dollar drawing to be held later that night. The long drive was made pleasant by the fact that we were driving over one of the most scenic passes in Colorado. I sat in the front seat of one the vans and took pictures out the window using my camera and Terry’s. I terrified him at one point by hanging onto one of the inside handles and leaning outside around the front of the van to get a shot over on the other side of the van. But all the best shots were on the driver’s side! At the top of the pass we piled out and posed for a group photo on the observation deck and then headed down the other side. Our route took us through Aspen and thence on down into Glenwood Springs where we ate a tasty picnic lunch at the trailhead of that day’s route.

Our route on Day 4 took us down Glenwood Canyon along the river for roughly 10 miles. It was another route that was imperceptibly uphill; a fact I didn’t mind as it allowed me to stop and take several pictures. About half of us opted to do the long route which was out and back and the other half decided on the shorter route of being shuttled out the endpoint to skate back. This last was very clever on their part as the route was on a downgrade nearly the entire way back. This gave Jennifer some excellent practice using her brake, which she declared made her more confident than ever before by the end of the day. > I skated out until I ran into Kris and Jennifer coming back from the end point. I turned around there and skated with them for a while until I drew ahead and ran into Chris walking down the trail—she’d met a hill that didn’t agree with her and had some spectacular bruises and contusions to show from it. It was a rather unexpected hill for many on the trail. > Rob acquired some splinters from trying to slow himself down one-handed and I was tempted to walk it although I didn’t. Everyone finally made it back to the Hotel Colorado where we dined later that evening on the veranda.

We capped off our final evening together with a pajama party in Kris and Barrie’s room while we waited for the Powerball to be announced. Sadly, we didn’t win but we did have a great time and generated a new theory that altitude is the leading cause of gas in Colorado. Terry and Rob confirmed this theory and to assure us of a large enough test group, Kris interrogated everyone as they walked into the room as to whether they’d had gas this week or not. She also resolved to make antacid a part of the trip packing list for next year. At Chris’ urging, Zephyr will also begin to carry a new kind of GORP, entitled GOARP for Good Old Advil, Raisins and Peanuts. Some wanted to include the antacid too, but that was voted down. > After the party Kris, Barrie and I ventured down to the bowels of the hotel whose environs lent credence to the ghost stories we’d been hearing all week. Barrie and I sat in the (not very) hot tub and eventually went into the sauna to warm up. > Then it was finally bedtime.

Day 5 began with a very early breakfast and a scheduled departure time of 7:15. Unfortunately (or happily, depending on your point of view), breakfast at the Hotel Colorado is made to order and it took a little longer than anticipated for everyone to eat. So, instead of shuttling out to another trail halfway between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, the group skated the Canyon again. Chris and I did not skate that morning but went shopping in downtown Glenwood Springs instead. GS is a pretty town and had the laid-back feel of a college town.

The real beauty and attraction here is in the red rock and dirt that permeate the area. The hills leading into and surrounding GS are all shades of red and orange and are especially beautiful in the early morning and late afternoon when the sunlight illuminates the canyon walls and hills. I tried to capture some of this on film but somehow the pictures are not as brilliant as my memories paint them. Skating down the canyon path with the sun reflecting off the river and the canyon walls glowing was a gorgeous sight and I regret that of all the excellent pictures I brought home from Colorado, there were no outstanding ones from Glenwood Springs.

After the morning skate everyone hurriedly gathered their things and piled into the van for the shuttle back to Denver. Actually, Rick, Ronen and Devon stuck around for a few more days for adventures learning to kayak down the river, but for most of us, the adventure was over. It was a quiet group that drove back into Denver that afternoon and scattered to their planes. I was staying an extra 3 days and Bob and Jennifer were staying overnight also. That evening the three of us took my rental car and went deep into the suburbs in search of a quiet place to eat. We settled on an Irish Pub where we ate dinner and began working the real world back into our lives as we gradually awoke from our vacation dreams. The next day, Rob and Jennifer left and I spent two more days hiking Colorado before hopping a plane back to reality, one more awesome Zephyr trip notched in my belt.