What's in Boulder?

Bru Handcrafted Ales and Mt. Sanitas are only the tips of the Flatirons.  Considered the number one outdoors city in America, in Boulder there are enough hiking and biking locations in and around the city that it is said that lifelong locals frequently find themselves in new and yet unseen surroundings.  From the Hyatt at Pearl Street downtown Boulder, a three mile bike ride along the pride of the city, the Boulder Creek

Path, leads to the Chautauqua Park, which serves as a sort of city gathering point of close trails
stemming up into the Flagstaff trail system in one direction and the Flatiron numbered system in the other.  Royal Arch is considered a nifty geologic feature, a narrow, fractured Flatiron whose middle

has fallen away and that still miraculously holds steady despite a crack clean through.  In peak summer, the trail pulls the hiker through a little bit of everything -- a kind of Rocky Mountain sampler -- forests, meadows, a talus field, a stream crossing and a little spring.  No more than a

couple of miles from the hotel, two hours later, smack in the middle of a raw mountain world.  Up along the other side of valley, still connected to the Chautauqua trailhead system, is the Flagstaff summit.  Not only does the nature center serve as a great destination point for visitors, but renown Flagstaff House Restaurant, itself built into the side of a mountain, stands as an overlook to the city,

and considered one of the top romantic restaurant destinations in the country.  Flagstaff House has been continuously owned and run as an elegant vista restaurant since 1971.  The current executive chef began here as a busboy when he was 14, then went on to chef training around the country and

most famously under Thomas Keller, the modern American / French cuisine master from French Laundry in the Napa Valley.  A nice place to sit and overlook the day's climb.