Top Three Reasons to Visit Estes Park This Summer
Summer is always one of the best times to visit Estes Park, Colorado and adjacent Rocky Mountain National Park.
The scenery is spectacular, with snow covering the mountain tops into June, and wildflowers bursting into bloom in July and August.
This year there are several other compelling reasons to visit the area.
Below are the top three: One: Estes Park has built a new seven million dollar, 33,000 square-foot Event Center, and Pavilion, adjacent to the Fairgrounds, totaling 52,000 square feet of indoor floor space.
Construction for the two facilities began just one year ago and continued despite the major flooding of Fall, 2013.
The facilities are meant to host conventions, indoor festivals and sporting events throughout the year, but be one of the first to see the new buildings.
The pavilion will host its first event in early June, the Wool Market.
What's the Wool Market, you ask? It's a festival showcasing all the animals we use for wool fiber.
Besides competitions and food booths, fleeces, yarns and handmade sweaters are typically sold.
Two: Rocky Mountain National Park celebrates its one hundredth year anniversary in 2015.
To beat the crowds, definitely visit the park this year.
Hiking, fishing, and horseback riding are just a few of the many activities to partake in.
And then when you have worn yourself out physically, or it's a rainy day, enjoy the town of Estes Park.
Fun stores and restaurants of all kinds abound.
Just want a good book to settle in with for the day? Visit Macdonald's Bookshop, family owned since the 1920's, and an Estes Park favorite.
Or see a movie at the historic Park Theater, the oldest continuously running theater west of the Mississippi.
Three: The Rooftop Rodeo, five times voted the Best Small Rodeo of the Year by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, starts this year on July eighth at the Fairgrounds.
Some of America's best cowboys and cowgirls bareback bronc ride, barrel race, team rope, and bull ride amidst a backdrop of stunning, soaring mountains over a five-day period.
But if you want to see the largest outdoor rodeo in the world, with the nation's top rodeo cowboys vying for the million-dollar payoff, then plan a visit to the Cheyenne Frontier Days which begins July nineteenth.
Personally, I have never found the one and a half hour drive to Cheyenne from Estes Park as toiling.
The scenery is varied and the highway fast and open for a good part of the trip.
Why not visit the Cheyenne rodeo, but return to Estes Park for the night? Talk about the best of both worlds.
The scenery is spectacular, with snow covering the mountain tops into June, and wildflowers bursting into bloom in July and August.
This year there are several other compelling reasons to visit the area.
Below are the top three: One: Estes Park has built a new seven million dollar, 33,000 square-foot Event Center, and Pavilion, adjacent to the Fairgrounds, totaling 52,000 square feet of indoor floor space.
Construction for the two facilities began just one year ago and continued despite the major flooding of Fall, 2013.
The facilities are meant to host conventions, indoor festivals and sporting events throughout the year, but be one of the first to see the new buildings.
The pavilion will host its first event in early June, the Wool Market.
What's the Wool Market, you ask? It's a festival showcasing all the animals we use for wool fiber.
Besides competitions and food booths, fleeces, yarns and handmade sweaters are typically sold.
Two: Rocky Mountain National Park celebrates its one hundredth year anniversary in 2015.
To beat the crowds, definitely visit the park this year.
Hiking, fishing, and horseback riding are just a few of the many activities to partake in.
And then when you have worn yourself out physically, or it's a rainy day, enjoy the town of Estes Park.
Fun stores and restaurants of all kinds abound.
Just want a good book to settle in with for the day? Visit Macdonald's Bookshop, family owned since the 1920's, and an Estes Park favorite.
Or see a movie at the historic Park Theater, the oldest continuously running theater west of the Mississippi.
Three: The Rooftop Rodeo, five times voted the Best Small Rodeo of the Year by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, starts this year on July eighth at the Fairgrounds.
Some of America's best cowboys and cowgirls bareback bronc ride, barrel race, team rope, and bull ride amidst a backdrop of stunning, soaring mountains over a five-day period.
But if you want to see the largest outdoor rodeo in the world, with the nation's top rodeo cowboys vying for the million-dollar payoff, then plan a visit to the Cheyenne Frontier Days which begins July nineteenth.
Personally, I have never found the one and a half hour drive to Cheyenne from Estes Park as toiling.
The scenery is varied and the highway fast and open for a good part of the trip.
Why not visit the Cheyenne rodeo, but return to Estes Park for the night? Talk about the best of both worlds.
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