It's hard to beat the view from the YMCA of the Rockies with Rocky Mountain National Park in the background/YMCA of the Rockies
Laughing children, teens streaming out of the cafeteria, and elk grazing peacefully on the lawn greeted me as I made my way to check in to the YMCA of the Rockies, a venerable and sprawling retreat cupped in a mountainous bowl sidled up against Rocky Mountain National Park.
Making my way to the front desk, I wait in line with an elementary school teacher from Wyoming who was spending two days at the sprawling campus with her fourth-grade students. A trip sure to strain one's composure, I imagined, but she told me about the wonderful programs, some led by park rangers, that kept the students enthralled, busy, and learning about what creeps, crawls, slithers, and flies overhead in the park.
This is not your typical Young Men's Christian Association facility.
The main campus covers 860 acres just southwest of Estes Park and below 9,237-foot Emerald Mountain with 14,259-foot Longs Peak beyond it. Along with the many on-campus activities there are hiking and horseback trails leading to Moraine Park inside the national park, which didn't arrive until seven years after the YMCA campus was up and running. Dating to 1908, when the first Estes Park Encampment was held by the YMCA "to stimulate the spiritual life of the guests in attendance...", today the lodge, cabins, motel units and recreation areas cater to all-comers interested in a relaxing vacation in a national park setting.
Though Spartan in some respects, the cabins offer a cozy ending to your day/YMCA of the Rockies
And it can provide you that vacation without leaving the grounds. There's a 27-hole miniature golf course as well as tennis courts, volleyball courts, and basketball courts at your disposal. You can test your arm, and aim, with horseshoes or disc golf, organize softball games, or test your skills at the archery range. YMCA's "hikemasters" can take you to Longs Peak or somewhere else in the surrounding national park.
Wake up to a rainy day? Go to the crafts shop to work on weaving a basket, fusing glass into an abstract creation, or designing your own unique silkscreen presentation. Or you might decide to tie-dye a shirt, make some jewelry, or create a ceramic mug. If you're not artistically inclined, spend some time in the museum that tracks the history of this natural and cultural landscape. Or head over to the indoor pool for lap swimming and exercise classes.
"During the summer we have a lot of family vacations, from coples to family reunions," Kellen Toulouse, the YMCA of the Rockies' brand manager, told me as we explored the grounds.
Corporate retreats also are big at YMCA of the Rockies, which houses all these various guests in accommodations ranging from three LEED-certified, motel-like lodges and two-bedroom cabins up to four-bedroom vacation homes that will sleep 10. Some units have fireplaces, most have microwaves, few have TVs or dishwashers. After all, this is a vacation destination in the Rocky Mountains.
All cabins, by the way, are dog friendly.
You and your kids can return home with a personalized keepsake, like one of these national park silkscreen creations/YMCA of the Rockies
Wandering into the Craft and Design Center, we run into Sarah Gabelhouse, the director, beneath rafters festooned with woven baskets. On the other side of the room is the glass fusing station, and behind us is a sideroom for silkscreen artists.
"It's not popsicle sticks and macaroni. ... If you bring a $20 in here, you'll leave with a smile from here to here," said Gabelhouse, drawing a smile with a finger across her face.
The walls of the silkscreening room are covered with finished works featuring galloping horses, wolf profiles, peacocks, elephants and even saguaros. There's a unique national park design that you can personalize.
Part of the beauty of the crafts facility is that you don't have to finish your project in one day. Staying at the YMCA of the Rockies for several days or more? You're free to put aside partially completed projects to take a hike with plans to return and finish some other day.
At day's end, if you have a cabin you can fix your own meal. Or if you're staying in one of the lodge rooms, a meal ticket gets you into the Aspen Dining Room with its all-you-can-eat cafeteria-style setting with menus that feature the usual egg and grill items for breakfast, and fish, chicken, or beef entrees for dinner.
Winter doesn't close down the YMCA of the Rockies, either, but actually expands it to the organization's Snow Mountain Ranch. There you'll find lodging in cabins, yurts, and motel-style rooms along with a Nordic center with more than 100 kilometers of trails as well as a dogsled program and fat bike rentals if you find yourself jonesing for mountain biking in the snow. You can learn the nuances of curling, measure your aim on the biathlon course, or take a relaxing snowshoe hike or horseback ride.
Winter doesn't mean you stay indoors at the YMCA of the Rockies' Snow Mountain Ranch/Denver Post photo via YMCA of the Rockies
Rates depend, of course, on your type of lodging, dates, and whether you're a YMCA member, which gets you $15 off per night. In general, they range (in 2016) from $99-$464 per night.
And if you somehow run out of things to do on the YMCA grounds, well, there's always the national park next door.
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