Quandary TH - How'd it go?

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Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by BillMiddlebrook »

I realize there were probably fewer people on Quandary this weekend due to crappy weather but if you were there, how did it go with the new parking system?

I will be passing information along to the county, good or bad. Let's help them get this right...
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by E_A_Marcus_949 »

Coming back from Clinton group on Friday (first day of Quandary parking restrictions) I saw a bunch of people waiting in the parking lot for a shuttle early afternoon and what looked like only a few cars in the newly redone parking lot. Weird (but nice) not to see rows and rows of cars along the highway.
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by SchralpTheGnar »

Does this apply to Blue Lakes trailhead too?
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by headsizeburrito »

I suspect many users of this site are avoiding Quandary for the moment so there isn't a lot of first hand info, but I did just find this article: https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/03/q ... -shuttles/

One bit stood out to me:
For those who don’t want to pay to park — or who try to reserve a spot, only to discover the lot is sold out — shuttles run every 30 minutes from a parking lot a couple of miles north of the Breckenridge town center, beginning at 5 a.m., for the 10-mile trip south to Quandary. Twenty hikers were standing in line at 5 a.m. Saturday when the first 12-passenger shuttle van arrived, meaning eight had to wait for the next one 30 minutes later.
They may need to run shuttles more frequently or get larger vehicles, getting there by or even before 5am and still having to wait 30+ minutes for the next shuttle isn't great.
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by Wentzl »

SchralpTheGnar wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:35 pm Does this apply to Blue Lakes trailhead too?
NO.
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by breezytrees »

So people climbing Quandry's west ridge can park without reservation/problems?
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by GordoByrn »

breezytrees wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:56 pm So people climbing Quandry's west ridge can park without reservation/problems?
No reservation required at Blue Lakes TH. I was there yesterday.
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by madbuck »

My family went this morning (Sat 8/7/2021). Can't say that it seems like it's functional yet, nor would I recommend it. I do understand it's a work-in-progress and I think they were understaffed already, so I hope some progress can be made.

We arrived at 6:05 this morning. Honesty, I thought the bus part would be an extra bit of fun for the kids (it was) as well as not worrying about parking.
I was in no particular hurry based on the weather forecast, and wanted time to get my kids (7 and 3) and gear ready, thinking maybe I'd catch the 6:30 bus. But people were starting to line up, maybe 12-15 but I had no idea how big the shuttles were -- which it turns out was smaller than that. A bus came at 6:25, didn't fit everybody and said another would come at 6:35. It did, we didn't fit but also the driver said we needed a car seat, but (thankfully) the next bus would bring one. Again, I'm not local and until this morning I didn't know these were more like vans instead of buses. I was thinking, naively perhaps, these would be like ski buses where we would typically put our kids on our laps to take up 2 seats for 4 people.

So we got on at 7am with a car seat. In the back of my mind I wondered what it would be like in the afternoon to wait plus the car seat situation, but that was a future problem.

Along the way we hiked the same pace as another family with a 4- and 6-year old who had somebody drop them off. They offered to drive us to pick up the car in the afternoon if somehow we ended at the same time, which was a nice offer. Turns out our kids hit it off and provided a much-needed distraction for them on the ~3 hour(!) descent.

Sure enough, there was a waiting line (~20 deep) for buses on the way back at 3:30, with the front people saying they were waiting for an hour. A bus came right after that but couldn't take half (a few more hikers were now arriving). And I didn't want to bother figuring out the car seat thing. I gratefully took a ride from our new friends back to the Breck Airport Rd lot. They had space for one in their car so I rode back with them -- this means getting a ride back to the PnR to get my car and drive right back to pick up my family. This takes 35-40 mins but was the right call because after those 40 mins we were all in our car together, and I still saw some of the same people waiting. My wife said she saw a few other cars come pick people up from the bus area.

---
Anyway those are my observations on a pretty perfect weather day. I shuddered to think about waiting through all this in a PM storm. Yeah, you've gotta be prepared for it when hiking but when hiking you can choose a bit of a sheltered spot -- in this situation you kinda have to stay close to a specific spot, which would mean standing there in the parking lot. Also, I know kids needing a car-seat doesn't affect most people, but for those that does it's a very important detail.

Generally I think busing/transit solutions try to make it very convenient so that it's a clear, superior alternative to driving, but this is not the case here.

One upside I guess is all the monkey business makes it feel more like an epic expedition!
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by justiner »

This person seemed to have a good time,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/8233844 ... ently_seen
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by madbuck »

justiner wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 10:21 pm This person seemed to have a good time,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/8233844 ... ently_seen
Ha, thanks! From the photos/timing I think somebody didn't ride the shuttle, asked some people for feedback in the morning and then called it good?
The afternoon look quite different.
I hope with more data on timing it'll improve.

I did see from that post as well that there's a survey, so I filled that out. Tried to be constructive. Although, the survey does not ask for the day you visited (assumes same-day), but it does ask for your income!
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by kwhit24 »

So after a few more weeks how has this been working out? Have they made any changes to the shuttle frequency or times in the morning/afternoon?
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Re: Quandary TH - How'd it go?

Post by justiner »

Followup Article:

https://www.summitdaily.com/news/local/ ... a-success/
FitzSimons said about 3,200 people have reserved spots in the paid lot since it opened July 30, and the shuttle has seen in excess of 20,000 riders to date. He noted that the third-party company hired to facilitate reservations and enforcement has issued a total of 327 citations for people illegally parked in the paid lot.
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