Celebrating "Colorado Day" in Leadville, Colorado

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 1, 2023

August 1 is the date that Colorado became a state in 1876, so it is designated as "Colorado Day." Since we're living in this state for a month, it seemed fitting that we celebrated with the locals. So we planned a Colorado Day driving north towards Leadville. While we didn't stop on the outskirts of town at Turquoise Lake, the glassy views sure tempted us. We'll be back on another day with our kayak.

We took a series of gravel roads to travel nine miles west of Leadville for our Colorado Day hike. As our bumpy road took us up in elevation, we couldn't see the mountains because of all the trees around us. After traveling in areas where the trees have been decimated by fires and beetles, it's nice to drive through a healthy forest.

Our destination for Colorado Day is inside the Mount Massive Wilderness in the San Isabel National Forest. It was 56 degrees when we started the trail, but it didn't take us long to warm up with our hiking.

This trail is rated as "strenuous" because of its steepness. It's just a little over a mile to the lake, but we went up 876 feet in elevation. It's like being on a stair-stepper for an hour as we went up and up.

We didn't see any wildlife, but we found some fun places for them to hang out. While Denisa wasn't keen on going into dark caves, Mark seemed to relish the opportunity.

We were on the Windsor Lake Trail, and it finally got less steep once we got to the upper plateau. We had beautiful views since we were in a bowl surrounded by mountains.

We're glad that we knew that the first marshy lake was not our destination, because we would have been disappointed with the hike.

The next lake was our destination. When we finally got to Windsor Lake we were not disappointed!

The water is so clear that we could see every rock on the bottom. We have wandered into another of God's wonders!

The big mountain behind the lake is Massive Mountain--the second highest in the Rocky Mountains. At 14,429 feet, it's also the second highest in the state of Colorado.

We thought it was interesting that another mountain in this area is Oklahoma Mountain. While we weren't completely sure which peak was named Oklahoma, our mountain identification app indicated that it was someplace close. While admiring the surrounding mountains, we hiked half-way around Windsor Lake before the marshy wet ground stopped us. 

While the steep hike up was hard, sometimes the steep hike down can be even harder. You seldom hear of anyone falling up a steep mountain, but it would certainly be easy to fall down. We had to stop occasionally to take in the wildflowers that were still blooming on August 1. Orange paintbrushes are more common in the Oklahoma and Texas prairies, and their blooming season was over long ago. We love the pink color of the paintbrush flowers that last all the way to fall in the cool high-altitude mountains.

Speaking of flowers, we also found an abundance of blooms in an unusual place--the public bathroom near the visitor center in Leadville. A local artist was putting finishing touches on the new paint job before the upcoming Boom Days. At the chamber office we got information about this weekend's festival, as well as Colorado Day.

We had read that the Healey House had free admission and a guided tour in celebration of Colorado Day. The tour included the white three-story house built in 1878, and also the tiny log cabin right beside it.

We were glad that we hiked in the morning, because it started raining as we began our house tour. The Healey House has served as a family residence, a school, a hospital, a boarding house, etc.

But today it had been restored to the period somewhere between 1878 and 1900. Our tour guide pointed out that it was built before trains brought more people to this mountain. So every piece of furniture had to come up the mountain on a wagon. The fact that the large figurine sitting on the piano made it here on a bumpy wagon ride might indicate that it was made of tough stuff--just like the pioneers that settled here.

During its days as a boarding house, meals were served on a white table cloth, with cloth napkins. But this was in the days before automatic washing machines. So each guest had a unique napkin ring. After each meal they rolled up their cloth napkin and put their unique napkin ring around it. They would use the same cloth napkin for a week until the next wash day.

Charlotte, our tour guide, talked fast in order to tell us the most stories possible during our 60-minute guided Colorado Day tour. 

Right next door we walked inside the Dexter Cabin. While it looked like a simple pioneer cabin from the outside . . .

it was lavishly decorated on the inside. Mr. Dexter was one of the original millionaires made rich from the gold and silver mined in these mountains. He built the ultimate "man cave" where Leadville's elite came to play poker in the 1800s.

It was a great tour into the past of Leadville, and a great way to celebrate Colorado Day. On the drive back to the motor home, it rained and hailed on us. They really needed the moisture in this part of the state, so that was another reason to celebrate on Colorado Day in Leadville.