So you want all the details, or maybe you want to go yourself?
Here is what you may want to know.
When
August 2022 20 (Sat) - 27 (Sat)7 Nights
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thur | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Cost:
Who wants to hear about a trip if it's to expensive to go yourself? I've always hated travel shows that show you an incredible location and never mention the price, or the price mentioned doesn't include taxes or fees which can be up to 25% in some areas. The prices below are after all taxes.
Something of interest this time. I took a very similar trip for the Guys 40th Ten Years ago. It's an eye opener to see the comparison. Everything went up significantly. The Room cost is highly misleading given that for the guys trip we were splitting the cost 4 ways so we got the fanciest house on the property, a 3 story Mansion. This time we got a fine house but definitely not in the same league.
| 2011 Trip | 2022 Trip | |
| Room | $3,102 | $3,075 |
| Airfare | $245 | $711 |
| Car | $413 | $527 |
| Gas | $52 | $45 |
| Park Fees | $20 | $47 |
| Total | $3,832 | $4,405 |
The House
Windcliff
Estes Park Vacation Rentals (Houses and Condos)
Primavista Rental Home
3 bedroom Duplex
A very nice place with some good views. It has the same issue as every other house in the area being that not only is there no air conditioning, there are no ceiling fans or even free standing isolating fans. Sorry, but in the middle of the day in the summer there may not be a breeze and it gets warm. So weird the almost bias they have against ceiling fans in the mountains.
About the only downside to this property would be that the pictures are nicer than the place in person so it was a slight let down when we first arrived. This seems to be almost entirely due to the dim lights they have everywhere in the house. Whomever took the pictures for the website did an outstanding job with adding light to the rooms without it looking like they put up staging lights.
As with all of the properties at Windcliff just know that the it feels like it takes forever to get up the road to your unit. From this unit it takes 6 minutes to get from the main road to the house and it's not very fun in the dark.
Plane
I thought I would try something different this time and change from flying Southwest to United. I was thinking that being able to choose our seats would be really nice (it was) and that the overall experience would be just a bit better (it was not). Yes it was very nice not having to fight for seats, but the deal breaker was the incredibly bad inflight entertainment on United. On the outbound flight it was a "use your own device" setup, but the wifi was so bad it was impossible to use. On the return flight, they had seats with built in screens which was good, but all of the screen were served by a Direct TV Stream. So the movie start on the hour and play just like TV. Did your flight not get off the ground till 8:45? Too bad, sucks to be you.
Rental Car
Not a new "trick" but what is old is new again. A couple of days before your trip make sure to call the car rental company and see what the current prices are. Ask them to adjust if the current price is lower. For this trip it saved me $83 for a 10 minute phone call.
Other
Park Permits
We figured that by going in late August we could avoid some of the crowds and any snow. While we were right about the snow, If that is how the park is when it's not crowded, I don't want to go in the crowded season. The park has moved to permits for everything so you have to about 90 days in advance to get permits. I grabbed mine in the first hour they were available and got what I needed but they seem to go fast.
Early Starts
The Bear Lake and Glacier Gorge trail heads are about the busy places in the park so get there early. Also know that from the park entrance to the trailhead is 30-40 minutes so if you want to get to the trail by 8:00am, you have to plan ahead. While this sounds a bit early, remember that every day at 1pm-2pm you will get rain and likely thunderstorms. You don't really want to be above the tree line in a thunderstorm, and in late August you can also get hail as well as rain which is unpleasant to hike in. I personally got really unlucky with all three on my down climb of the waterfall when hiking Sky Pond. I do not recommend the experience.
Restaurants
Expect to pay a premium price for good but not incredible food. The big disappointment was the Twin Owls Steakhouse. The food was good, but they moved the entire restaurant about 2 years ago and the new decor simply does not have the same charm. Hunters Chop House very good food at a premium price, so there just might not be many alternatives.
Whiskey and snacks at the Stanley Hotel were excellent. Again, you will pay for the experience.
The true stand out meal of the trip was a new restaurant in Boulder CO called "The Local". Stand out food at a good price.
Grocery Stores
A shout out to "The Country Market of Estes Park". A fantastic little grocery store. I wish we had known about this little gem earlier as we would have skipped the Safeway most of the time.