We planned to enjoy nature with a lot of hiking over the weekend.
But first, we perused the community farmer's market. We bought some rolls and pastries and enjoyed the warm Saturday morning. Before heading out to our first hike, we stopped to get some lunch meat and cheese.
Our first hike took us about 40 minutes outside of town to the Mad Creek Falls Trailhead in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness.
This hike was 9 miles round trip with 1700 feet of elevation gain. The elevations was spread out between the first mile or so of the hike and then the last mile. Most of the hike in between was on pretty level ground.
We saw and heard cows as we sat to enjoy our lunch and saw a number of people riding horses.
Before hiking back to the Pilot, we stopped at the Mad Creek Barn and took a few pictures.
We didn't have a lot of time since Chris had made reservations at Strawberry Hot Springs. We drove back to Steamboat, grabbed a quick dinner at McDonald's (meh), and then drove for another 20 minutes up the mountain to the springs.
Our reservation gave us a two-hour window. After that, and at sunset, the springs became "clothing optional". I did see a bear meandering through the trees as we sat in the hot springs.