Story by Nicole

For Monica’s birthday, a group of us went to Steamboat Springs for a night. Steamboat is a lovely small town about three hours from Denver, and it is home to the wonderful Strawberry Park Hot Springs.

We arrived in Steamboat on Saturday and spent a few hours at the Yampa River Festival, where we watched people ride over the rapids on rafts, kayaks, boogie boards, and stand-up paddle boards. Many people made it over the rapids successfully, which was an impressive feat, and many more made it over unsuccessfully, which was an amusing feat.

On Saturday night we went to Strawberry Park, which was wonderful. The springs are in a fairly remote location and it gets quite dark at night. It’s a beautiful place, but we don’t have any good pictures, so you’ll have to visit yourself.

On Sunday morning, we got up fairly early, checked out of the hotel, and went to Fish Creek Falls to go for a hike. We walked to the main falls, then hiked a couple of miles to the upper falls as well. It was a really beautiful spring hike, and I would highly recommend it.

Starting off down the trail (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Leaking water impedes our progress (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Cameron doing…something (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Climbing through the Aspen grove (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The mountainside (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole and Monica pose on a bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason and Nicole at the upper falls (Photo/Someone Else)

Photogenic waterfalls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Eric at the upper falls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole, Monica, Eric, and Cameron near the top of the falls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

View of Steamboat (as well as Cameron and his absurd swim trunks) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Aspen grove (Photo/Jason Rafal)