How to use the Free Summit Stage and Gondola For a Downhill Hike - Part 1

We love to hike a good loop trail, but we get a little bored with trails that take you through the same scenery out and then right back. While camping near Keystone, Colorado, we discovered the Summit County free public bus system, and ways to hike without that boring hike on the same trail back to the car. Our campground host first described a way to do the Peak Trail, and we followed his advice. We were up early, to get a parking place near the Peak Trail head in the town of Frisco. Then we walked to the bus stop, just a quarter-mile away. Yes, we're wearing jackets in the middle of summer, because it's chilly at this elevation at 8:15 a.m.

The Summit Stage is a free public bus system that services most of the county. It wasn't long before our stage arrived. We are headed to Breckenridge this morning.

Riders must wear their masks, and we're getting lots of use out of the ones that Denisa's sister made for us. Colorado requires masks in all inside spaces, and whenever you are around people.

Colorado also requires social distancing. Since we only had 3 other people on our bus this morning, that was easy to accomplish.

We rode the purple-line bus all the way to Breckenridge's transfer station. With the snow-capped mountains in the background, this might be the prettiest bus station in the country. We watched as many buses came and went from this busy hub.

We are here to catch the free Breckenridge gondola to Peak 7. The gondola doesn't open until 9 a.m., so we had some time to look around.

We watched as they disinfected each car as it went by. Being early morning riders should insure us a clean gondola.

They actually opened five minutes early, and we were one of the first going up the mountain today.

After skimming over several Breckenridge residential areas, we came to a greener part of our gondola ride. Below us is the wildlife refuge area. We took pictures, but didn't see any wildlife this morning.

There are three exit points on the gondola. We took the second exit onto Peak 7. Families riding all the way to Peak 8 can do activities like the Goldrunner coaster and the alpine slide. But we are interested in the Peak trail head that starts right beside the Grand Lodge on Peak 7.

We are using four forms of transportation for this hike today. After driving our car, riding the bus, and being whisked up-hill on the gondola, we now are left with only our legs to get us back to Frisco. We started our nine-mile hike under the shade of some big old pines.

Most of the trail is shaded, with some great forest and water views.

Did we mention this trail also has wildflowers?

We could have started this hike in Frisco, and hiked the Peak Trail to Breckenridge, and then taken the gondola down and the bus back to Frisco. But that configuration would have been mainly up-hill. The way we chose has us hiking mainly down-hill. Nice!

Our only complaint about this trail is that mountain bikers also like the Peaks Trail. Denisa has a fear of bikes. She's not really afraid they will run over her, she's mostly afraid that she will do something that will cause them to fall off their bikes and hurt themselves. It's a long story, but that has happened before. So meeting and/or being passed by so many bikes takes away from the serenity of the forest for her.

We hiked through some areas that had been logged, where the ground is suddenly bare of all vegetation. We would normally think that is ugly. But because there are no trees, we are finally getting some views of the peaks around us as we continue on the Peaks Trail.

Mark has his AllTrails app running, and he noticed an option to get off the Peaks Trail for a while. We can hike on the Colorado/Continental Divide Trail for a while, and hopefully will lose some of the bike traffic.

Besides, who would mind adding an extra mile or so when you're already hiking nine miles today?!?

We are really enjoying great weather for this long hike today!

We finally reached Rainbow Lake, just a couple miles before our destination in Frisco. This is a popular hike from Frisco, so the number of people on the trail increased for those last two miles.

The number of mountain bikers on the trail also increased. Every time one approached, we ducked off the trail and dodged out of their way. Denisa kept track, and we encountered 42 bikes in our ten-mile hike today. That's a lot of ducking and dodging!

We arrived back to our car in Frisco by the middle of the afternoon. Our hike was a success! You would think that after ten miles of hiking, Denisa would have had enough exercise today. But we finished just in time to get to the farmer's market back in Dillon. She walked another mile up and down the long line of vendors to get her garden-fresh produce and some yummy bakery goodies. Even though we were walking downhill all day, we have to replace all those calories we burned!

We have to say that our first experience at using the free transportation options in Summit county worked out great for a nice downhill hike for us. We plan to use them again!