Devil's Thumb Ranch Birthday Weekend - June 2014

Devil's Thumb Ranch

For our birthday weekend, we drove to Tabernash, CO which is about 15 miles north of Winter Park to stay at Devil's Thumb Ranch.  The area is quite beautiful and we decided that we would definitely go back, possibly even in the winter to try out show shoeing.

Accommodation:

Devil's Thumb Ranch - A beautiful lodge nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains.  The lodge itself is made of stone and wood and is quite updated.  Our room was in the main lodge overlooking the valley and mountains.  They offer lots of activities on property and there are two restaurants as well as a spa.

Activities:

We drove up on Friday afternoon in the Audi, leaving around 4:30 and arriving at 6pm.  We drove most of the way with the top down, enjoying the mountain views but about 30 miles out, we had to close the top as it started to drizzle.  After we checked in, we got to our room to find a cheese plate and a card from the lodge wishing us a Happy Birthday so we snacked on this while we showered and got ready for dinner.  

After breakfast on Saturday, we went for a 2.5 hour hike on the property.  The area was still quite wet and muddy from the snow melt so one of the staff at the activity center recommended a hike that was dry.  Of course, we wanted to get higher in elevation so we continued further past the point that we should have cut back and ended up getting wet and muddy.  Turns out the staff knew what they were talking about!  When we got back to the lodge, we had lunch and then showered and relaxed a bit before our massages which entailed more relaxing!  After the spa, we showered again and then went to dinner.  It's a sign of a great vacation when you take three showers in a day!

On Sunday, we had breakfast and then relaxed at the lodge - the weather was looking dicey so we opted not to do a hike and drove home early.  Along the way, we saw many of the cyclist who were doing the first leg of Ride the Rockies, a 6 day bike trip through the mountains of Colorado.  This leg of the trip had the bikers riding from Boulder to Winter Park.  The weather was ominous the whole way home so we didn't get to drive back with the top down.

Keith doing the interpretive dance on the interpretive trail!

Restaurants:

Hecks - Located in the main building of the lodge.  We had breakfast here both mornings - Shawna had the fruit with yogurt and granola plate and Keith had the steel cut oats.  We had lunch here on Saturday, sharing the fish tacos and chopped salad.  We ate dinner here on Friday night as well.  For appetizers, we shared a chickpea dish (that was not so tasty) and curry mussels (which was quite yummy).  For our entree, we shared lamb with mixed grilled veggies which was very flavorful.  We had asked the waitress to recommend an unoaked Chardonnay but apparently she did not really understand the request as the wine was quite oaky - we somehow managed to consume it anyway!

At Ranch House Restaurant 

Ranch House Restaurant - Located in one of the adjacent buildings to the main lodge.  We had a wonderful 5 course tasting menu for dinner on Saturday night.  We each started with a cocktail and chose the wine pairing to go with dinner.  The courses included: spinach salad with egg, bacon and shoestring potatoes; scallops with pork belly, foam, crispy carrots and some sort of grain (this dish was the most flavorful); panko crusted abalone and elk with spaetzle.  We were supposed to have chocolate tort for dessert but they had run out so we got to choose our own which was much better - Shawna had the blueberry bread pudding and Keith had the pineapple upside down cake with coconut ice cream.