Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Steamboat Springs, Colorado is located 5.5 hours from Park City, 2 hours from Laramie, Wyoming and 2.5 hours from Denver. Summer temperatures are moderate dry heat in the mid 80s with bright blue skies and falls to around 60 degrees.

The Yampa River flows thru

The Yampa River passes through the town connecting one side of Steamboat to the other. The Yampa River Core Trail, a multi-use paved trail, is about 7.5 miles and follows along the river with minimal elevation changes. Restaurants and bars are along the trail if you need to stop for a drink or something to eat. Throughout the trail there are also wooden bridges making it easy to cast a line for some excellent trout fishing.

Best Summer Activities to Do

Summer options are numerous so don’t miss out on all the things do do: hot spring soaking, mountain biking, hiking trails, music festivals and horseback riding make it a fantastic summer destination. Steamboat is abundant with natural hot springs (where it’s name was derived from). The Old Town Hot Springs is in town and Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs is located 20 minutes out of town with cabins and camping. Steamboat Lake is about 27 miles from town where you can rent paddle-boats, canoes, and boats. For over 30 years, free summer concerts at the Steamboat Springs Strings Music Pavilion features more than 60 different summer shows from local choirs to well known artists. The Silver Bullet gondola lift on Mount Werner is something special to see with sunset views, green trees, meadows and wildflowers. Open year-round you can ride to the top and have lunch at one of the restaurants. Make sure you visit the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area in the Routt National Forest which covers 160,000 acres. Calendar of events can be found here.

Images from this article in the store HERE.

Downtown’s Old West Vibe

Downtown has a great Old West vibe with unique shops and restaurants (view the map here) . We stumbled on a store FM Light & Sons with an incredible history. While driving from Park City, we kept seeing these old wood signs “ FM Light & Sons established 1905” ever few miles starting around 100 miles out from Steamboat. At first glance, the signs seemed like a land sales real estate sign, but they were advertising signs for the western apparel clothing store. The store staff says this has been going on since the store was started 100 years ago and signs are 100 miles out in all directions. Their cowboy hats and boots selection are amazing.

Four golfcourses to play

There are 4 golfcourses in Steamboat: Haymaker Golf Course (public), Steamboat Golf Club (semi-private), Rollingstone Ranch Golf Course (Robert Trent Jones II designed at the Sheridan Steamboat Resort) and Catamount Ranch and Club (Tom Weiskopf designed private course),

Art Galleries to Stroll

Art Galleries are scattered through downtown as well as various art events occur throughout the year, like “Art in the Park.” My favorite was Wild Horse Gallery, which has enormous statues out front of their store.