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Thank you for booking my tour, I will send you a welcome letter with an up to date weather report and all the info you will need a day or two from the start of the tour. Please explore my web page and feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you might have.

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Planning Your Visit

I've spent my whole life in Colorado so I thought I'd share some tips and my favorite places. If you're here you've already booked my tour and I assume you have an idea of what you would like to do.

If you're staying outside of Boulder I would suggest you take the daytime before my tour to explore Boulder. It's a wonderful area with lots of hikes, scenic drives, a pedestrian mall with lots of arts/culture/buskers, and the celestial seasonings tea factory. 

If you do not need to have access to a car to enjoy Boulder as most everything is within walking distance and there is a nice, cheap, & fast bus called "the flationflyer" that connects Denver to Boulder. You will however need to lyft/uber the last few miles to my tour site.

 

  •   Good hikes​​

    • Chautauqua park - {20min to 5+hrs, all difficulties}  Walking distance from downtown Boulder. Most of the trails are medium to hard difficulty wise and really worth it, I have been coming here for years and still haven't seen it all. If you want something easy just check it out the grounds and have a nice stroll around. The best hike I would say is Royal Arch it's a hard 3 miles out and back hike and will likely take ~2.5hrs. Chautauqua hosts many performances, cultural events, lectures, and was the site of my parent's wedding! It is a beautiful park where you can access a large system of trails and climb all the way to the top of the flatirons.    

    • Boulder Falls - (~8min, fairly easy} Accessible by bus up a winding canyon road, ~half way to Nederland, is a really nice water fall. It's very short hike with just a few steps from the road, but it has hazards of rock slides to be aware of.

    • Boulder Creek Path - {10min to ~1hr,  very easy} path that goes from downtown Boulder up Boulder canyon a ways. 

  • Sights of the town​

    • Pearl St Mall - A pedestrian mall ​in downtown Boulder,with many fun shops and street performers. My favorite shops are 'into the wind' (kite/toy shop), Nature's own (rock shop), liberty puzzles (puzzle shop), and my favorite place to eat is Mountain Sun Brewery.

    • Mork and Mindy house - If you're a big Robin Williams fan defiantly stop by the Mork and Mindy house just at 16th and Pine for a picture in front of Mindy's house! 

    • Boulder creek - many parks are dotted along the boulder creek path many holding community events such as free fairs, concerts, and farmer's markets. The creek can be tubed down when the water's high.

    • Phill Lewis art studio - My favorite local artist

    • Dushanbe Tea House - A tea house given to Boulder from our sister city Dushanbe Tajikistan

  • Tours offered from Boulder's industry

    • Celestial Seasoning's Tea Factory​ - Fun tour with unlimited tea samples be sure to visit the "mint room" to take some deep menthol breaths.

    • National Center for Atmospheric Research - Science, exhibits, and architecture tours are offered Monday Wednesday Friday. 

    • Leaning Tree - greeting cards with nice western art. 

    • Liberty Puzzles - puzzle factory that makes very unique wood puzzles. 

Weather

Weather

Weather reports are notoriously untrustworthy in Colorado. I do not make plans around weather reports that are further out than 24hrs. This is why I wait until the day before the tour to message guests weather reports. If you are ever worried about the weather please contact me. If you think it will be too cold, wet, or cloudy for you to enjoy the tour I will be happy to issue a refund just please give me as much of a heads up as possible (28hrs in advance for a weather cancellation is ideal). I also guarantee satisfaction so if you do come and we are clouded out or if for any reason you are not satisfied please contact me and I will issue a full refund.  

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Reading Reports:

The top things I check is; cloud cover, chance of rain, and temperature.

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Cloud cover effects astronomy greatly, I don't express concern until the reports are saying around 50% cloud. Cloud can come and go during the 2hr tour and if they are thin high atmosphere clouds we can see thru them. I canceled due to thick ~70% cloud cover.   

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Rain can damage my telescopes and equipment, I have covers and tarps if there are small quick showers but if the chances are too much above 50% I'll usually call it off. 

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Temperature is fairly subjective, I have never canceled a tour due to temperature, actually the colder nights usually have calmer atmospheric conditions making the sky better. However if you wish to rebook to a warmer tour please contact me.

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I have 4 places I check for astronomy weather. I have them listed here in order of trustworthiness:

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1)

Weather. gov

NOAA and the National Weather Service have large laboratories in boulder. I would recommend touring one of their facilities while you're out here. If it interests you NOAA offer free tours of their Earth System Research Laboratory every Tuesday. However they do not play favorites with their weather forecast, I have known them to be way off a number of times so always check more than just them  

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The best report for the tour site is here:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=40.0854&lon=-105.2518&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical

 

That page should open in a new tab looking like this:

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how to check the weather for stargazing!

scroll down to see the full forecast and use the tools shown here:

what all of the graphs mean when checking the weather

2) Weather Underground:

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There is two weather stations that are close to the site 

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  1. https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/co/boulder/KCOBOULD67?cm_ven=localwx_hour

  2. https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/co/longmont/KCOLONGM106?cm_ven=localwx_hour

 

I usually use the app which is easier to navigate but they offer cloud, rain and temp predictions up to 10 days in advance (of course getting less and less reliable)

 

  there's also a web cam showing the sky above the site here: https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KCOLONGM106  you can access the webcam by clicking the webcam tab above the radar map.

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3)astrospheric.com

this one is not that accurate but is geared for astronomy:

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https://www.astrospheric.com/?Latitude=40.07971327977763&Longitude=-105.26297092437744

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4) clearoutside

agian not too accurate but geared towards astronomy, best for knowing the moon phase, sun set/rise time , moon set/rise, etc.

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http://clearoutside.com/forecast/40.01/-105.27

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