Day 49: Hiking from The Baldpate Inn

Estes Park is a hiker’s haven, and The Baldpate Inn is a wonderful place to start many hikes! With a spectacular view of Longs Peak and Mount Meeker greeting you at the top of the driveway, it’s hard not to be inspired to head for the hills! 

Guests and staff alike have taken advantage of Baldpate’s proximity to Longs Peak, making that VERY early morning start much more bearable. The fact that the Baldpate staff will send you off with a bag of goodies makes the “alpine start” that much sweeter. The hike up 14,259 foot Longs Peak is indeed long, but absolutely worth it in the end.

Happily, there are also many hikes that can begin right from The Baldpate Inn that do not require you to be an insanely-early-morning-person! 

If you want to head downhill first, you can consider the Homer Rouse Memorial Trail.

Lily Mountain, across from The Baldpate, stretches above Lily Lake, and offers the starting point several hikes with stunning views. Estes Cone is also nearby.

For those who don’t need to stand on the top of a mountain to feel like they’ve enjoyed their hike, Lily Lake’s wheelchair accessible loop trail is beautiful and often serene. (Well, serene until you startle a deer and it yells at you).

Twin Sisters Mountain is right behind The Baldpate Inn. As reported to me by a tourist encountered on the trail, with a definitely-not-from-Colorado accent, “That there is some real live mountain climbing!”

And indeed, it is always advisable - for a hike of any length - to be prepared with the 10 essentials, and keep your eye on the weather. And even if you are just hiking from the Baldpate’s Key Room to the Dining Room, remember to stay hydrated due to the higher elevation.  Hydrating along with a piece of pie totally counts! After that hike, you’ve earned it.

Cheers and happy hiking!

Written by Liz Rodgers

Day 26: Theater at Baldpate: Part Four, Sundeck to Key-thedral Theater

Nearly ten years after the addition of the stage on the Sundeck, Encore!Encore!, an incredible theater production group from Fort Collins, contacted me regarding their upcoming performances of an adaptation of Seven Keys at Baldpateasking if I would like to help sponsor. Of course I said YES!   (Over the years, many community theaters from around the country had done the same, and we were always pleased to help however best we could.) 

It was such a delightful performance at the Fort Collins Lincoln Center, both companies thought Baldpate’s stage had to be next!   We agreed!

So with one final update on Sundeck, now dubbed The Key-thedral Theater, the summer of 2009 brought a new level of expertise to our stage.

For the next several years, we enjoyed many performances by the Encore!Encore! family including radio play variations of Seven Keys to Baldpate and in 2011 another fun story, Arsenic & Old Lace.

As you can imagine, the sheer work and logistics of bringing a theater company to the mountains was incredible to say the least. 

In 2012, with Encore!Encore! on sabbatical for a year, our own Estes Park Fine Arts Guild of the Rockies stepped in to meet the demands of our theater lovers.  Over the next couple of years, they delighted our guests with Southern Comforts & Love Letters in 2012, Marriage can be Murder 2013 (along with Encore!Encore! return with the radio play version of 7 Keys), Vintage Hitchcock 2014, and Coming Apart 2015, and back by demand, Seven Keys, story theater version in 2016. B3Creative joined our venue producing Barbara Boyer Buck’s original plays, Impossible Paradise in 2014 & Paradise Protected in 2015.

Outdoor theater brings it special challenges, be it rain or bears or who knows what! You still gotta say it is always an adventure!  

We are planning big events of course for this year!   So make plans now to come for our Birthday Celebrations special productions of Seven Keys to Baldpate, live on stage at the one and only Baldpate Key-thedral Theater!

Written by Lois Smith

Day 25: Theater at Baldpate: Part Three, Dance Hall to Sundeck to Key-thedral Theater

As mentioned yesterday, the Sundeck really was an evolution over a number of years.

Because of the wonderful old native stone fireplace, we first started there with the intent of just providing our guests a place to sit in the sun and enjoy nature. 

With the ever more popular theater crowd, we determined we needed more space, so phase two became not just a place in the sun, but an “event” option for weddings and our own little outdoor theater. MacKenzie and his dog worked hard to make it all come together!

The Sundeck turned out beautifully and remains a lovely spot for guests to enjoy the outdoors, but it wasn't finished yet! 

Our final phase came with the creation of our covered shell stage, now christened the “Baldpate Key-thedral Theater” by MacKenzie.

Interesting to note, building on the original footings, our current Key-thedral Theater is only about half the size of the 1921 original casino structure!

Written by Lois Smith

Day 24: Theater at Baldpate: Part Two, Dining Room to Sundeck

It seems only natural, having a mystery novel as part of our legacy, that revisiting the stage play would almost be mandatory. Interest in having a production of “Seven Keys to Baldpate” has been in demand over the years.

Since the Dance Hall was pretty much in ruins, having collapsed under the weight of snow when we purchased the property, we had to improvise the first years and thanks to the creativity of some very talented locals, in honor of Baldpate’s 75^th anniversary, we started in 1992 with our radio play, performed in the dining room. Dick Anderson, Kerry Aiken & David Czapp along with director Melody Paige created magic with their microphones and sound effects (think crunching potato chips for footsteps in frozen snow.)  Sam Sandoe had created our radio hour script in which each character came to life and delighted listeners.

At the end of a two-year run, the production became too popular to fit in the dining rooms, and we decided next time to take it up a notch.

By now we had done several stabilizations and started restoration for the beloved Dance Hall, reclaiming the original fireplace and about one fourth of the original floor space in what we dubbed the Sundeck, a place guests could sit and enjoy the sun.

Time for the next step, so in the spring of 1999, MacKenzie (with his dog, Leika) tackled the job of repairing the Sundeck once again, enabling us to produce a live staged version of the play. 

Melody Page stepped in to direct our enthusiastic 1999 Staff in creating our production.  Our staff worked incredibly hard to not only do their “day” jobs, but also to memorize scripts, practice and perform for our guests that summer. 

Can’t say it wasn’t a challenge, but it was a smash success! 

Written by Lois Smith

Day 21: Chipmunks of Baldpate

Chipmunks occasionally make the list of most surprising encounters at The Baldpate Inn. Although not invited or encouraged, these little party-crashers tend to steal the hearts of all they meet, with their insatiable curiosity and charming antics. Cheeks stuffed full of food-for-later, they scamper with tails flying across the grounds of The Baldpate Inn.  With extreme dexterity and agility, gravity does not seem to apply to them as they scurry down trails and up trees. Their excitable chatter can be heard as they enjoy pine seeds from a pine cone or other treat. 

A few brave souls have attempted to gain entry to the Inn, undoubtedly hoping for a morsel of the delicious fare, or possibly to investigate a key or borrow a library book? But none have been granted permission to stay. 

As you may be aware, it’s unwise to feed wildlife, as it is unhealthy for the animals.  However, there’s certainly no rule against watching these endearing animals busy at work and play, and there are plenty of opportunities to do so while sipping some tea on the porch or enjoying some sun on the sun deck.  

Here are a few tips for observing and photographing chipmunks in the wild. 

Do you have a chipmunk memory you’d like to share from The Baldpate Inn?

Want to know the difference between a chipmunk and a ground squirrel anyway? 

 

Written by Liz Rodgers