Steamboat Springs Area

Steamboat Springs isn’t the most exciting town in September. Too late for water-sports, too early for skiing. The dynamic of the people here is strange, people are either rich or poor, not much of a middle class. But this makes sense given that this is a top tier ski resort town. The number of million dollar homes smashed together around Steamboat Mountain is insane. A large percentage of them are condos, and as you spread out a bit, houses with almost no yards.

Just outside of town there is a nice trail that leads to Fish Creek Falls. It’s a nice break for people from being so close together in town. The trails are well kept and mostly paved. The trails are popular and well used.

We took a luxurious walk to Fish Creek Falls after work one evening in Steamboat Springs.

The main street through the actual town of Steamboat Springs runs parallel with the Yampa River.

On the main street in what would be considered “downtown” are upscale, trendy shops, restaurants and bars. There are nice places to wonder around as you walk up and down the street. Being a ski town, everything is well kept, clean and full of nice people. I don’t know how much this changes as the population swells in the winter, but in the fall it’s pleasant.

Lovely downtown Steamboat Springs.

One of the more unique places in town was a jewelry shop that also sold all kinds of fossils. They are not cheap. That was a new one for us…

Heading north from Steamboat Springs, about half way to Wyoming, you will come to Steamboat Lake. Not sure if the town was named after the lake or the lake was named after the town, but they aren’t really that close to each-other.

The lake is easy to get to and was almost deserted in September. Steamboat Lake is about 1100 acres with about 5 miles of hiking trails around it. No one was at this time of year, but boating is allowed on the lake.

The very few people that were at the lake looking like they were fishing, which seems like it would be popular in nicer weather. There is a visitors center at the lake since it is a state park as well.

Not only is the lake beautiful, the mountains surrounding the lake were something to see as well.

Pretty much across the street from Steamboat Lake is another one called Pearl Lake.

Pearl Lake is much smaller than Steamboat, and as such it felt even more deserted. There is a boat ramp and unlike the larger lake, there are a few high-end homes on the lake. There is also what looks like a great campground overlooking Pearl Lake.

Seeing these two lakes in September of 2020 was very misleading as an example of lakes in Colorado. As we would find out as we traveled south later in the trip, most of Colorado was in a very severe drought. The whole state was under strict fire restrictions. Not only would we see numerous lakes where the drought was evident, they were extremely large and destructive forest fires throughout the state that we would have to zig-zag through soon.

Heading out of Steamboat and toward Estes Park. This was right around the Continental Divide.