winter hiking with kids

Hiking to St. Mary’s Glacier

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

Have you ever hiked on a glacier? Or even seen one? You don’t have to travel to Alaska or even Glacier National Park, but if you live on the East Coast, you do have to travel west. In the Lower 48, there are over 340 glaciers in California, Colorado, Oregon, Montana, and Wyoming. A few years ago, we hiked on one of the more accessible glaciers, St. Mary’s Glacier, located north of Idaho Springs, Colorado.

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After parking in one of the two small parking lots, our group found the trailhead and began hiking on a sunny, clear, but cold February afternoon. At over 10,000 feet at the trailhead, the air was thin for flatlanders like us.

We huffed and puffed with children in tow (ages 4, 6, 10, and 12), climbing only 420 feet during the ¾ mile hike past St. Mary’s Lake to a snowfield.

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At the glacier, we took photos, the kids rolled, and we watched people glacading before we headed back on the trail.

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St. Mary’s Glacier is located in the Clear Creek Ranger District of the Arapaho National Forest, about an hour’s drive from downtown Denver.  The trailhead is located 9.2 miles north of I-70 on SR 275 (Fall River Road). For more information, check out www.protrails.com or call the Clear Creek Ranger District at 303-567-3000.

Trip taken February 2009.

Hiking to Boston Mine Camp

/ Tara Taft / 2 Comments

When is Boston not a city and not in Massachusetts? Answer: When it’s a mine in Colorado. When you’re tired of and/or exhausted from skiing in Colorado and or just looking for a change of pace, but still want to be outside, try snowshoeing or hiking into an old gold mining camp, the Boston mine camp.

On a winter break in Colorado, we took a break from skiing at Copper Mountain and ventured on a trail nearby. The sun was warm, and the snow was packed enough that snow shoes weren’t an absolute.

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With the kids pulling sleds and stopping periodically to throw a snowball, we hiked the 1.8 miles from the trail head to the former Boston mine camp where just an old log boardinghouse and log cabin remain from the days of gold mining activity in the early 1900s.

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We hung out in the Mayflower amphitheater, watching cross country skiers, exploring the old cabins, sledding, and enjoying the views, before heading back to the car.

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For those more adventurous, you can hike the full Mayflower to Clinton Gulch loop as described in Mary Ellen Gilliand’s book, “The New Summit Hiker” and in an article published in The Summit Daily.

Directions to the trail head: Drive Highway 91 south 6.2 miles from the exit 195 off of Interstate 70 at Copper Mountain. The trail head will be on your left.

Trip taken February 2009.