Dog Friendly Colorado Vacation Package, Eight Nights Above Eight Thousand Feet

Fremont Pass tops out at 11,318 feet, and the thirty six miles over it between the two cabins on this week take about fifty minutes. That drive is the whole trip in miniature. Nothing on the itinerary is far away, and nothing on it is quick, because the road is either climbing or dropping the entire time and you are the one at the wheel.

This dog friendly Colorado vacation package runs eight nights, five of them at 9,750 feet on a dirt lane above the Blue River and three at 10,050 feet in the pines outside Leadville. Both places are booked whole and you have them to yourselves. The dog sleeps in both, rides in the car for all of the roughly 340 miles, and walks every trail on the route sheet.

It is the highest figure in the catalog, and the reason is arithmetic rather than luxury. A whole cabin in a mountain town in July costs what a whole cabin costs, and two of them across eight nights costs that twice, less what the length of the stay takes off. There is no room rate to hide behind and no lobby you are paying for. What the money buys is a week in which the only door closed to your dog is a gondola.

How far the dog comes

The dog is in the car for all of the roughly 340 miles, in both cabins, on all six walks and on every patio, and the only thing it does not come to is the gondola on day four.

What is actually included

Eight nights in two self catering cabins booked whole, five at 9,750 feet above the Blue River and three at 10,050 feet outside Leadville; the dog fee each property charges, paid before you arrive so nothing is owed at a door; a written route sheet with six trailheads, driving times, elevation gained and turnaround points; the gondola tickets for the walking half of the party on day four; and one named contact here who reads what you send the same working day.

What the dog is shut out of

The gondola, and nothing else. It does not carry dogs, so on day four the ride up, the ridge walk at the top and the ride down cost about three and a half hours; the lower station is six minutes from the cabin, so most parties split and swap, one person riding while the other takes the paved river path, then the other way around. Everything else on the eight nights was checked line by line before this page went up, both cabins, all six trailheads, the two forest roads, the reservoir loop and the town sidewalks, and every one of them is open to a dog on a leash.

What it does not include

Airfare and any flight at all, because this week is driven end to end; the car itself, its gas and its tires, all of which are yours; the gas for roughly 340 miles of climbing and descending at high country pump prices; every meal, since both cabins have full kitchens and the grocery run on arrival day is written into the plan; the refundable damage deposit each property holds against the stay; any second gondola ride, mine tour or museum you add once you are there; paid parking in town on the two days you leave the car below; and anything at all to do with your dog's own health or care, which is neither ours to arrange nor ours to advise on.

Who should not book this

Anyone who wants to fly rather than drive, anyone who would rather not take narrow paved passes with switchbacks and sustained grades near nine percent, and anyone whose idea of a week away is walking into dining rooms and shops instead of cooking in a cabin. The walks on this sheet gain 900 to 1,400 feet in under three miles, at elevations where every breath holds roughly a third less oxygen than it does at sea level, and if that is not the sort of walking you and your dog already do at home, one of the lower trips in the catalog is the better buy.

The months this works, and the months it stops being this

Altitude here is a physical fact and worth stating plainly. At 10,050 feet each breath holds roughly a third less oxygen than it does at sea level, water boils near 194 degrees Fahrenheit so dinner takes longer than the box says, and an engine gives up about three percent of its power for every thousand feet, which you will feel merging onto Interstate 70 with four people and a dog aboard. The sun is stronger by something like four percent more ultraviolet per thousand feet, and shade above tree line is something you plan for rather than find. Whether any of that suits your particular dog is a question for your own veterinarian, and this office does not answer it.

In July and August the buildups start over the divide around eleven in the morning and there is lightning on the high ground by one in the afternoon, which is why every walk on the sheet begins at or before seven. Nights drop into the thirties Fahrenheit at both cabins even in midsummer, so the wood stove gets used in August.

Mid June to early July

Runoff is loud and cold, crossings run high, snow still lies on north slopes above 11,000 feet

July

Warmest of the year, upper seventies Fahrenheit at 9,000 feet by afternoon, thirties at night, storms after eleven

August

Same daytime heat, heavier and more regular storms, the two longest walks move an hour earlier

September 10 to October 5

Aspen turn, mornings near freezing, clear skies, the quietest weeks of the season on this route

Late October onward

Boreas Pass Road and the forest roads close with the first sustained snow and the sheet loses half of itself

November to May

Not sold. The passes are plowed and the dirt roads are not, and the week stops being the week

Ask about day four first

Most people write in with the same question, which is what the dog does while half the party is on the gondola, and it is the right thing to lead with. Tell us who is coming, how many are in the car, and which weeks of the year you can move. The rest of it is scheduling.