It took a little over 10 minutes to get to the top- along the way we could see mountain bikers heading down the trails.
The snowball I was pretending to throw was really more of an ice ball- and full of dirt and twigs.
There was live music at the top- and also some pretty good BBQ to go with the incredible views.
Mount Guyot (13,370 ft.) on the left, and I think that is Bald Mountain (13,684 ft.) on the right.
Dillon Reservoir is in the foreground, Buffalo Mountain (12,777 ft.) is on the far left.
At home, Mount Hood is 11,240 feet in elevation, but it seems so much taller because it stands by itself beside the Columbia Gorge. In the Rockies, we were standing higher than summit of Mount Hood, but we were surrounded by mountains that were bigger and higher than we were.
I guess it's all about perspective!
After all the picture taking, we decided to have dinner at the summit.
I had Bison Sausage with grilled onions. Yum.
Back down at the River Run Village, my teaching partner, Kevin, and I got a little touristy...
When we first arrived at Keystone, it felt a little like a ghost town... drab, dusty, lots of hotels, but very few people. I guess the place is booming in the winter, but in the off season it felt a little sad. Knowing what I know now, I would say this would be a fun place for a family trip in the summer. The rates are better in the summer, and there are still quite a few things to do- hiking, river rafting, abandoned mine tours, mountain biking, snow tubing, gondola riding, horseback riding, photography, etc.
Getting here from the Denver airport is expensive any time of year, but if you can figure that part out, it is a nice place to spend a few days.
