Steamboat Springs - going to the dogs, the falls, and the rabbit run

We have been camped in Meadows Campground in the national forest just southeast of Steamboat Springs for a several nights. Those tall pine trees make our big motor home look mighty small.

It has been coat-and-glove weather here at 9,300 feet in elevation. In fact, we've gotten down below freezing all three nights. The last night was our warmest, but the plants outside were still frosty the next morning.

So we headed down into the valley this day to check out some of the activities in town. We found that Steamboat Springs, Colorado, is a very popular tourist town with lots going on. After checking at the visitor center, we got a whole sheet of activities for this weekend. On Saturday, this little city was hosting a magic festival workshop, Octoberwest Beer festival, a guided gourmet lunch hike, live music at several places downtown, the Humane Society Gala, World Fiesta Celebration, and the Run Rabbit Run Ultramarathon. Wow! That's a lot of events for one weekend! But the event that caught our eye the most was the "Cattledog Trial." It was so much fun to watch these border collies herd groups of three cattle around the obstacles set up in the arena.

The trainers stay at one end of the arena, but they aren't allowed to help in the process of moving the cattle through gates and around barrels. You can see the cowboy standing by the barrel with his hands crossed, giving instructions to the dog only through a series of whistles.

The owners use their whistles to instruct the dogs to lie flat when the cattle don't need to be nudged  . . .

or to come around the herd to steer them a different way.

The hardest obstacle was bringing the three calves into a pen, then sorting one out while leaving the other two. It was amazing!

The emcee was introducing the owners and dogs, and of course we had to cheer for the team from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We would visit with them in the stands later, and found that they sold the horses on their ranch after they started training cow dogs six years ago.

It was especially fun watching the dog vs. calf stare-down. The smaller dog wouldn't back down when they wanted these bigger bovines to go the opposite direction.

We could tell that these dogs loved their work!

The trainers travel all over the country to enter these contests, and it was fascinating to watch. We stayed for the novice category that included dogs that were less than three years old. The puppies were less professional than the older dogs, but still fun.

We would return for more cattledog competition in the evening. But we had more of Steamboat Springs to explore. We went to the Farmer's Market, where we bought some of the yummy Colorado peaches and kettle corn.

Denisa has witnessed Mark's expert parking skills as he has maneuvered our car into some very short parking spaces. The bike rack on the back makes this more difficult because it makes us longer and also harder to see. So when he successfully got us into a hard-to-find spot near the Farmer's Market, we thought our parking problems were over for the day. But when we came back to move the car, we found our parking problems had just started. He had actually done too good a job at getting us situated close to the curb. Now with cars parked really close in front and back of us, we had no room to turn the wheels to get out of the parking place!

We finally got out of that space when the car behind us left. What a crazy parking dilemma! So now we could head to Tripadvisor's #1 thing to do in Steamboat Springs--a hike to Fish Creek Falls. We headed up the trail to take a look for ourselves.

We can tell that we have seen some beautiful places this summer, because we were a bit underwhelmed with the views of these #1 falls even when we got closer.

But we were overwhelmed by the number of snakes we saw on the short hike up to the top viewpoint. We were surprised to see the first one on this popular trail. We were startled to see a second snake just down the trail. But we were totally stunned when we saw a third snake on the edge of the trail. These snakes weren't staying in one spot very long, so the best picture we got was after one had already slithered into the bushes beside the trail. 

We had heard about the "Run Rabbit Run" ultramarathon taking place this weekend. So we put the race's finish line into our phone GPS and followed the directions toward the Steamboat Springs ski area. The bad news is that the GPS intended for us to drive down one of the ski trails to get to the finish line at the bottom of the mountain. We were on a little-used gravel road that suddenly came to a dead end! The good news is that we got to see the runners coming down the mountain, without the crowds of people at the finish line.

Some have ran 49 miles, and others 99 miles up and down the mountains around here. Many of them had pacers that were running this final mile with them. The guy in the blue has ran 99 miles, and is just trying to survive for one more. The guy in the red is just running the last mile with him for moral support.

The next group of pacers were wearing hats that were shaped like a flamingo, a possum, and an alligator. They were running the last mile with their very tired friend, who was "an animal" to make it this far in this grueling race.

The 100-mile race started at noon yesterday, so many of these runners were going up and down the steepest terrain during the dead of night. These are crazy-fit people with crazy ideas of fun. In this rabbit run, they are divided into "hares" and "tortoises" with some serious prize money for the winning hare.

After a day of going to the dogs, the falls, and the rabbit run, we have had a great weekend in Steamboat Springs. We're not sure if every weekend is this busy, but we are impressed with all the fun that this little city had planned for our Saturday.