Hellobee Boards

My recommendation is to watch the weather! We went in late May few years ago and had 3 feet of snow. Hopefully that won't happen to you. As a result, I don't have any warm weather suggestions!

We live in the Denver area but have visited the Winter Park area multiple times. Our family really enjoys the Y's Snow Mountain Ranch- we have three kids ranging from 2-8 years. You can get day passes if you aren't staying on the property and they have all kinds of fun activities. In the summer: a summer tubing hill, horse rides, a lake with canoe rentals, a 2 mile round trip hike to an amazing waterfall, a little village set back in the 1800s, roller skating rink (adults can walk on it with tennis shoes to help the little ones, a small trike play area, an indoor pool, several playgrounds, and mini golf.

I literally just stayed in Winter Park for 3 days in July and did RMNP. I'll type up something later when I get home, but don't let me forget.

Are you and your husband hikers at all?

And yes to the dressing for three seasons comment.

@josina: ok here's what I remember:

- Don't go to the Fat Cafe Cafe in Granby for breakfast, it's misleadingly named bs it's a buffet and ridiculously overpriced especially for children (something like $14 for adults and $12 for kids). They even charged us for our 18mo (who looks barely 1) who didn't eat anything

For eating I recommend these places, notice location:

Day 2: Mostly driving the Alpine/ Tundra area
- Drive from Winter Park up to the Alpine Visitor Center. Leave at 7, as a suggestion. Get lulu's donuts to go for breakfast and quickly stop at the holzwarth parking lot to see if the herd of Elk is chilling there in the morning. Get to the Alpine Visitor Center by 9, peruse the gift shop, it is the best one (2 buildings). This parking lot gets completely full all day 10-3.

- From the parking lot, walk down the Ute trail a little bit to touch snow.

-optional: alpine ridge trail, similar to TC trail below but a bit more uphill, no rock formations. Trailhead at visitor center parking lot.

then drive the Trail Ridge Road , stopping at all the overlooks. The visitor center has a $2 guide that's helpful.

- On the drive, do the Tundra Communities, Trail. It's a little uphill but short, like a mile roundtrip? Amazing rock formations and views.

Overlook parking can get difficult from about 12-2. My husband would drive in a circle while I did the overlook, then I'd hope back in and we'd switch.

- Drive back on the Old Falls Road for a slight change in scenery and maybe less traffic. NOT PAVED, but it's gravel I think. Its technically shorter in mileage.

- trails that weren't open for us: mt Chapin and .... something else, I'll come back to this.

- eat a hot late lunch / early dinner at the cafe at the Alpine Visitor Center.

- drive back to Winter Park.

@josina: not at all. I read that water and carbs help with that, and we naturally consume a lot of both so we were fine. None of us have ever experienced car sickness.

It's mainly if you gain 5000 ft of elevation in one day, if I remember correctly. That only happened on one day for us, and we didn't feel it.
On Friday, we drove from Grand Junction to Winter Park gaining 5000 in elevation, but we spaced it out so it was like half driven in the morning, BIG break to Glenwood Springs, then half driven in the evening. We slept at Winter Park and our bodies adjusted overnight.
Then on Saturday was the Grand Lake area, which is lower than Winter Park, then Sunday was the Alpine area, which is about 2000 ft of gain.