Fifteen days · Columbine Valley cottage, Littleton 80123 · two checked bags and two 60L packs Backpacking Aug 18–24, Rocky Mountain NP included · handoff Aug 25 · Littleton reconnaissance Aug 26–31
Rocky Mountain is back in — and it turns out the backcountry is far more available than the campgrounds were. Going pack-only actually makes the front half of this trip better, because the sites worth having are the ones you have to walk to. Two things now sit on the critical path, and one of them will strand you at a permit counter if you miss it.
Book this week — in this order
RMNP wilderness permit — Pine Ridge, Thu Aug 20 + Fri Aug 21.recreation.gov/permits/4675320. $36 flat for the whole trip, not per night. Both nights are open right now, and so is Upper Wind River as the alternate. These are single-tent sites — two cancellations either way changes everything. You have 15 minutes to check out once you start.
Call Kirk's Mountain Adventures, 970-577-0790, and reserve a bear canister. $3/night, or free with any purchase. Backup: Estes Park Mountain Shop, 970-586-6548, $10/night, open 8–8 daily. Read the bear canister box below before you do anything else — this is the item that can sink the day.
Staunton State Park walk-in, Wed Aug 19. Ask for Ponderosa Loop, lowest site number available — those are the 180-yard carries rather than the 800-yard ones. cpwshop.com or 1-800-244-5613.
Optional — Golden Gate Canyon backcountry shelter, Sun Aug 23. Four shelters exist in the entire park. cpwshop.com, $18/night.
The rental car. Peak season, three weeks out.
Barolo Grill, Fri Aug 28 · Yoga on the Rocks, Sat Aug 29 ($23, last of the season) · Ray LaMontagne at Red Rocks, Wed Aug 26 · Rockies vs. Orioles, Mon Aug 31 (the only home game in your scouting window).
Two hospital tours. UCHealth Highlands Ranch: 720-516-3008. AdventHealth Littleton: 303-730-8900.
A buyer's agent and a lender for Mon Aug 31.
The bear canister trap — read this twice
RMNP requires an approved hard-sided bear canister for every backcountry night from April 1 through October 31. No elevation exception, no area exception. Hanging food is explicitly prohibited.
And here's the part that ruins people's mornings: you must physically carry the canister into the Wilderness Office to be issued your permit. Recreation.gov states this three separate times. Show up without one and you don't get the paper, which means you don't get into the park, which means the day is gone.
So the order on Thursday is: Kirk's first, Wilderness Office second, trailhead third. Kirk's is at 230 E Elkhorn in downtown Estes; the Wilderness Office is at Beaver Meadows just west of town. Call ahead — late August is peak season and these shops hold limited stock. Kirk's published hours are thin, so if they can't confirm an early opening, use Estes Park Mountain Shop instead; they open at 8:00.
Two pieces of good news
Your wilderness permit replaces the timed entry reservation. Confirmed in three separate NPS sources — including for the Bear Lake Road corridor, which is normally the hardest reservation in the park. Hand the ranger your printed permit and your veteran credential and drive in. No $2 lottery, no 9 AM window.
Your veteran pass covers the entrance fee — and you don't even need the physical card. A DoD ID, a VA health card, a VA digital Veteran ID, or a driver's license with the veteran designation all work at the gate with photo ID. What it does not cover: the $36 wilderness permit, and campground fees. Worth knowing that the 50% camping discount applies only to Senior and Access passes, not Military — a common and disappointing surprise.
Gear: what flies, what doesn't, what to buy here
Lucky break
REI Lakewood is at 5375 S Wadsworth Blvd — Lakewood, CO 80123. The same ZIP code as your cottage, about ten minutes away. Fuel, food, water jugs, anything you couldn't fly with. Mon–Sat 10–8, Sun 10–7, (303) 932-0600. Don't detour to the Platte Street flagship; you don't need to.
Item
Carry-on
Checked
Fuel canisters — any type, even empty
No
No
Stove burner head, clean and fuel-free
Yes
Yes
Trekking poles, tent poles, stakes
No
Yes
Knives, multi-tools with a blade
No
Yes
Spare lithium batteries, power banks
Yes
No
Headlamp with batteries installed
Yes
Yes
One lighter (non-torch), one book of safety matches
Yes
No
Torch lighters, strike-anywhere matches
No
No
Bear spray
No
In practice, no
Water filter or purifier
Yes
Yes
Two counterintuitive ones worth internalizing. Lighters and matches are carry-on only and banned from checked bags — the opposite of what everyone assumes. And spare lithium cells and power banks must ride in the cabin, never checked. Put the stove burner head in your carry-on too: if an officer questions it you can argue it at the checkpoint rather than have a checked bag pulled. A clean canister-stove head passes easily; a sooty liquid-fuel stove that smells of gas is the one that gets confiscated. Bear spray is technically allowed in checked bags under 4 oz, but every real can is 8–9 oz — so it's effectively prohibited. Colorado is black-bear country with no grizzlies; skip it.
Buy at REI Lakewood on Aug 18
Two 8 oz isobutane canisters (~$10 each — better fuel-to-metal ratio than the 4 oz), a Bic lighter and matches, two 4L collapsible water jugs, and your trail food. Expect $200–280 all in, most of it food you'd buy anyway.
Leftover fuel can't fly home. Leave it with the Airbnb host, hand it to someone at a trailhead, or drop it in a hiker box. Even a punctured, vented canister is prohibited — the FAA's "residual vapors" language covers it, and a checkpoint is not where you want to litigate that.
Load splitting
No reputable outdoor source publishes a hard pack-weight limit for pregnancy — they all frame it as a load-sharing problem rather than a number. The consistent advice is not to split gear evenly.
You carry the shelter, all the water, all the food, the stove, the cook kit, and the bear canister. Casey carries her bag, pad, layers, day water, and personal items — realistically 12 to 18 pounds. On approaches of 1.4 to 1.8 miles, 40–45 lb on you is very manageable.
The concrete detail worth knowing: the hip belt needs to ride low, under the belly, across the hip bones — the same principle as seatbelt positioning in pregnancy. At 14–16 weeks the change is modest but it starts. If the belt won't sit comfortably low, the fallback is shifting weight to the shoulders, which only works if her pack is genuinely light. Which is the argument for keeping it light in the first place.
Phase 1 · Unplugged except emergencies
Aug 18 – 24 · The mountains
Ramp: 5,470 ft → 8,118 ft → 8,880 ft. Every approach under two miles. No campfires anywhere, at any site, all week.
Tue Aug 18 — Arrive and provisionCottage · 5,470 ft
10:30 AM
Land at DEN, collect the car.Littleton is the opposite diagonal of the metro — 35–40 miles, 45–60 minutes.
Afternoon
REI Lakewood, then King Soopers. Fuel canisters, lighter, matches, water jugs, trail food, groceries.Ten minutes from the cottage. Also your first "there is no H-E-B in Colorado" moment.
Evening
Repack for the trail and sleep at 5,470 ft. That's the whole assignment tonight.Dinner in historic downtown Littleton — Café Terracotta (5649 S Curtice St) or Palenque (2609 Main St, no reservations). Hydrate more than feels reasonable; dehydration at altitude is the most likely thing to wreck a day of this trip.
Wed Aug 19 — Shakedown at StauntonStaunton SP · 8,118 ft
Why here
One night to test everything you flew with, forty minutes from the cottage.If the stove doesn't light, if a pole is missing, if the fuel is wrong — you find out here, with a car nearby and a hardware store an hour away. Not at 8,900 feet in Rocky.
Midday
Drive up US-285 — 12102 S Elk Creek Rd, Pine. About 50 minutes, straight up 285 from your doorstep.
Setup
Walk-in site, Ponderosa Loop. Sites run 180 to 800 yards from the lot — a low Ponderosa number is a two-minute walk.Bear-proof box at every site, so no canister needed here. Water spigots are in the parking lot, not at sites — fill the collapsible jugs at the car and carry them in. Vault toilets are near site 14 in Spruce Loop, which is a walk from Ponderosa. Fires banned year-round regardless of the county ban.
Evening
Davis Ponds Loop — 2.3 miles, ~236 ft of gain. The right way to spend a first evening at 8,000 ft.
Thu Aug 20 — Into RockyPine Ridge, Wild Basin · 8,880 ft
7:00 AM
Break camp, drive Staunton → Estes Park. Roughly 2h15 via C-470 → CO-93 → US-36 through Lyons.
~9:15 AM
Kirk's Mountain Adventures — 230 E Elkhorn Ave. Pick up the bear canister you reserved.
~10:00 AM
Wilderness Office, Beaver Meadows Visitor Center — 1000 US Hwy 36. Open 7:00 AM–3:30 PM daily, 970-586-1242.Bring the canister and your rental car's license plate number — they print the plate on the permit and issue a free dashboard tag for overnight trailhead parking. If you're not there by noon on day one the permit is cancelled with no refund; call before noon and they'll hold it until 3:30.
~10:45 AM
Drive CO-7 south to the Wild Basin trailhead — about 25 minutes from Estes.The last two miles are a narrow dirt road and the lot fills by about 7:30 on weekends. On a Thursday you should be fine.
Midday
Hike in to Pine Ridge — 1.4 miles, about 380 feet of gain. The gentlest real approach in the park.Camp at 8,880 ft. There's a privy, which matters more than it sounds at 16 weeks — several otherwise-good sites require packing human waste out in WAG bags. Water from North St. Vrain Creek; filter everything, giardia is present park-wide. Canister goes 200 feet from camp, locked, on the ground.
By 1 PM
Be at camp before the storms build.The park's own conditions report says it plainly: monsoon season, afternoon thunderstorms a real threat, be back below treeline by noon. Expect a soaking most afternoons — pack real rain gear, not a windbreaker.
Fri Aug 21 — Wild Basin, no packsPine Ridge · 8,880 ft
Why two nights
This is the payoff for a one-mile-something approach. You wake up already in the best low-elevation drainage in the park and walk out from camp carrying nothing.
Early
The waterfall walk. Copeland Falls is 0.3 mi from the trailhead, Calypso Cascades about 1.8, Ouzel Falls about 2.7 — all on maintained trail along the creek.Pick your turnaround by how she feels. There's no summit to bag and nothing to prove; the whole drainage is the attraction.
Noon
Back at camp. Lunch, nap, weather.
Night
Expect an overnight low around 38–43 °F at this elevation.A 20° bag is right; a 30° bag plus a liner works. Warm hat and a decent pad — nighttime bathroom trips are more frequent now and getting cold at 2 AM is a bad way to end a good day.
Sat Aug 22 — Out, and back to a real bedCottage
Morning
Hike out, return the bear canister in Estes, drive back to Littleton — about 2 hours.
Why today
Saturday Aug 22 is a wall and you should stop fighting it.Across the entire east side of Rocky, exactly two backcountry sites are open that night. Every front-country campground in and around the park — Moraine Park, Glacier Basin, Aspenglen, Timber Creek, Olive Ridge — is at zero. Coming down Saturday isn't a compromise; it's reading the board correctly.
Afternoon
Shower. Laundry. Do nothing.Optional if you have it in you: Rockies vs. Guardians at Coors Field, the last game before they leave town, or Joe Bonamassa at Red Rocks.
Sun Aug 23 — Optional shelter nightGolden Gate Canyon · ~9,000 ft
The idea
Golden Gate Canyon has four backcountry shelters — three-sided, roofed, wooden floor, sleeps six. $18 a night, 1.5 to 1.8 miles in.You don't pitch a tent at all. For people who flew here with everything on their backs, that's a genuinely elegant last night out — and a flat wooden floor sleeps better than uneven ground. Bear boxes provided, so no canister. About an hour from the cottage.
Frazer Meadow
1.8 miles via the Horseshoe Trail, about 900 ft of gain — the steepest carry of the week, so weigh it. Greenfield Meadow's shortest approach is 1.5 miles.
Call first
Golden Gate Canyon SP, 303-582-3707. Ask which meadows hold the shelters, and — more important — whether the creek is still running in late August.There's no potable water at the meadows and Front Range seasonal streams can be a trickle by now. If flow is doubtful, carry water in: roughly 4L per person is heavy for 1.8 miles but it's doable.
Honest take
Decide this on Saturday, not now.Skipping it gives you two clean recovery days before Sean's handoff. Taking it gives you one more night out and the nicest shelter setup on the Front Range. Book it — it's $18 and the cancellation is cheap — then decide based on how Saturday actually feels.
Mon Aug 24 — BufferLittleton
All day
Deliberately unstructured. This day absorbs a late start, weather, a flat tire, or just being tired.
Easy picks
Hudson Gardens (6115 S Santa Fe Dr, free, ten minutes away) and the Mary Carter Greenway.The greenway runs eight miles from Chatfield to Englewood and onward into downtown Denver, with separate crushed-stone and paved paths. It's the best single argument for living in Littleton, and it starts at your doorstep.
Evening
Write Sean's handoff list tonight so tomorrow's call is a conversation, not an excavation.
If you'd rather do three straight nights in Rocky
Upper Wind River has Aug 19, 20, and 21 all open — three consecutive nights is the legal maximum at one site. It's 1.6 miles and 620 ft from the East Portal trailhead, camp at 8,940 ft, privy on site, water right there. The clever part: East Portal sits outside the park boundary at the end of CO-66 past the YMCA, so there's no entrance station queue and no Bear Lake corridor to worry about, and the parking odds are the best of any candidate trailhead. Sprague Lake is an easy 1.9-mile stroll from camp. The trade: you skip the Staunton shakedown, which means the first time you test your flown-in gear is at 8,940 ft two hours from anywhere. Worth it if you're confident in the kit.
The RMNP sites, ranked
Site
Trailhead / distance
Camp elev
Privy
Open
Pine Ridge— the pick
Wild Basin · 1.4 mi, +380 ft
8,880
Yes
19, 20, 21
Upper Wind River— the alternate
East Portal · 1.6 mi, +620 ft
8,940
Yes
19, 20, 21, 24
Wind River Bluff
East Portal · 1.0 mi, +480 ft
8,800
Yes
20, 23, 24
Upper Mill Creek
Hollowell Park · 1.7 mi, +800 ft
9,200
Yes
20, 21, 23, 24
Mill Creek Basin
Hollowell Park · 1.8 mi, +600 ft
9,000
Yes
20, 23, 24
Moore Park
Longs Peak · 1.7 mi, +360 ft
9,760
Yes
22, 19, 20, 23, 24
Arch Rock — lowest camp available
Fern Lake · 1.6 mi, +90 ft
8,240
No
19, 20, 23
Over the Hill
East Portal · 1.3 mi
8,870
No
19, 20, 21, 23, 24
Availability checked live on July 28 and it moves. Moore Park is the only privy site with Saturday Aug 22 open — but it's 9,760 ft and Longs Peak trailhead parking fills between 2 and 4 AM in August, so I wouldn't build a plan on it. Fern Lake, Ouzel Lake, Thunder Lake, Odessa Lake, and Glacier Gorge are sold out every night in your window. Arch Rock is essentially flat and the lowest camp on the board, but it has no privy and sits in the Fern Lake Fire burn scar where the park warns about unstable snags and damaged footbridges.
Phase 2 · Anchor day
Aug 25 · Handoff
Reliable wifi, a quiet room, nothing that could run long.
Tue Aug 25 — Huddle with SeanCottage
Morning
The handoff call. Sean leaves after this and you have point through the 31st.
Afternoon
Stay local. Littleton Museum (6028 S Gallup St) is free and has two working living-history farms with animals — what local families do on a slow afternoon, which makes it quietly useful reconnaissance.
Evening
Early dinner, early night.
Phase 3 · On point, hourly checks
Aug 26 – 31 · Could we live here?
Everything below has cell coverage and tolerates interruption. School is in session — LPS started Aug 11, so you'll see real operations, not week-one chaos.
Confirmed, and it's the good answer
Your rental is inside Littleton Public Schools — Wilder Elementary → Goddard Middle → Heritage High. Columbine Valley is entirely LPS.
But 80123 spans three districts — LPS, Jeffco, and Denver Public Schools. A house 1.5 miles away with the same mailing address can be a different district. The high school is your tell: Heritage, Littleton, or Arapahoe means LPS. Columbine, Chatfield, or Dakota Ridge means Jeffco. John F. Kennedy means Denver. Zillow and Redfin get this wrong in this ZIP specifically — call LPS at 303-347-3300 and get any shortlisted address in writing.
Wed Aug 26 — Learn the district linesSouth metro · Red Rocks PM
Morning
Drive the LPS core: Columbine Valley → Bow Mar → downtown Littleton → Southglenn.Aug 26 is a late-start Wednesday at LPS, so bell times are pushed back.
Late AM
Then deliberately cross the line. West into Jeffco's Columbine area — Leawood, Dutch Creek, Governor's Ranch — and north into the Denver pocket around Grant Ranch.You want to feel how invisible the boundary is. Same road, same "Littleton, CO" address, different district.
Lunch
Downtown Littleton. Cencalli Taquería (2389 Main St), or In Tea (2440 W Main St) — 170 teas, and the right kind of place when one of you isn't drinking.
Afternoon
Bemis Public Library and the Littleton Independent — read the local school and development coverage.
Evening
Ray LaMontagne at Red Rocks.Rows 1–20 so the walk down is short, and bring a seat cushion — the benches are backless stone. Get dropped at the top of the Upper South Lot rather than climbing from below. Cell service congests during headliners; do your Slack check between sets.
Thu Aug 27 — Commutes and schoolsLittleton · Denver · avoid LoDo
6:45 AM
Littleton → downtown Denver at full rush hour — 35–45 minutes via Santa Fe. Then turn around and do Littleton → Denver Tech Center.Midday drives tell you nothing. Denver is 21st worst in the country for traffic, and the Hampden corridor from C-470 to I-25 added nine minutes of rush-hour time in three years.
7:45 AM
Park near Wilder Elementary at drop-off (4300 W Ponds Cir).Do parents walk their kids in? Do they linger and talk? Crossing guard? Is the lot chaos or choreography? Fifteen minutes here beats any ratings site.
Mid-AM
Tour AdventHealth Littleton — The BirthPlace, 7700 S Broadway. Level III NICU, 24/7 OB and anesthesia, midwives available. Twelve minutes from the cottage.
Afternoon
Washington Park — 165 acres, two lakes, a flat 2.5-mile loop, and South Gaylord Street. The Denver neighborhood most likely to make you want to move.
Evening
Levitt Pavilion — Dumpstaphunk, 7 PM, free. 1380 W Florida Ave.Stay out of LoDo tonight — My Chemical Romance is at Coors Field and downtown will be a mess.
Fri Aug 28 — Market, train, the big dinnerLittleton · Union Station · Cherry Creek
10 AM–2 PM
Aspen Grove Farmers Market — 7301 S Santa Fe Dr, five minutes away.The best low-effort place on this trip to talk to actual residents. Ask where they live and which schools their kids attend. Tattered Cover is in the same center.
Midday
Ride the C Line to Union Station. Time it door to door. $2.75 each way, $5.50 day pass.The D Line was suspended in June 2026 and the C Line reinstated for downtown rail reconstruction, which runs into 2027 — you're seeing a disrupted system. Worth knowing: youth 19 and under ride RTD free.
Afternoon
Work from the Union Station Great Hall. A restored 1914 train hall with leather armchairs — the best place in the city to do an hourly Slack check.Or swap this for the UCHealth Highlands Ranch birth center tour if that's the slot they gave you.
Errand
Full price-comparison grocery run at King Soopers. Same twenty items you'd buy at home.Groceries run about 27% higher than San Antonio. Abstract until it's a receipt in your hand.
Evening
Barolo Grill, 3030 E 6th Ave. The dinner.Thirty-five years old, Northern Italian, serious wine list, comfortable room. Deliberately not a tasting menu — à la carte, no raw-preparation problem, done in ninety minutes if you want. That matters more at sixteen weeks than a third star does.
Sat Aug 29 — The big dayRed Rocks · Littleton · open houses
6 AM
Yoga on the Rocks. Doors 6, class 7, $23.Final session of the 2026 season. Sunrise yoga on the amphitheater floor with a few thousand people — the closest thing to a "what would living here feel like" experience on the whole trip. Modify freely. Brunch after at Ship Rock Grille.
Late AM
Southwest Plaza Farmers Market — Wadsworth & W Bowles, 8 AM–2 PM. The one you'd actually go to if you lived here.
Midday
Open houses — six to eight, across at least three districts.At every one: what are the assigned elementary, middle, and high schools? Check the answer against the list above; you will catch errors. Also ask roof age, whether it's Class 4 impact-resistant, last hail claim, current premium, and the wind/hail deductible.
Afternoon
Colorado Dragon Boat Festival at Sloan's Lake — free, lakeside, a flat 2.6-mile loop with skyline views. Or skip it and rest.
Evening
Rest.Dave Matthews is at Fiddler's Green if you want it — flat, close, reserved seats. But after a 6 AM start I'd stay in.
Sun Aug 30 — Neighborhoods and the nurseryPlatt Park · Littleton
9 AM–1 PM
South Pearl Street Farmers Market and a wander through Platt Park.The sleeper neighborhood — next to Wash Park, a bit cheaper, and arguably the best small-scale main street in Denver.
9 AM–3 PM
Affordable Arts Festival — Arapahoe Community College, 5900 S Santa Fe Dr. $12, seven minutes from the cottage.Juried professional artists and every piece is $150 or under. Buy something for the nursery. This is the beat of the trip that's about the baby rather than the logistics.
Afternoon
Drive Ken Caryl and Roxborough — watch your phone signal the whole way.Beautiful red-rock foothills, and also your cell-coverage stress test and wildfire-exposure reality check. Both sit in the wildland-urban interface where insurance availability, not just price, becomes the question.
5 PM
Levitt Pavilion — Kyle Hollingsworth Band, free.
7 PM
Go sit in the neighborhood you like best.Are kids out on bikes? Columbine Valley's median age is 50.5 and 29% are over 65 — beautiful and quiet, and it may or may not have the young-family density you want. Every other number in this plan is available from a laptop. This one isn't.
Mon Aug 31 — Decisions, then a ballgameLittleton · Coors Field
6:45 AM
Second rush-hour run on whichever route your top-choice neighborhood would use. One data point isn't a pattern.
Morning
Second visit to your number-one candidate elementary.Ask principals directly: how is the $10.6M district budget cut landing in your building? Class sizes this year versus last? Enrollment stable? Five-year outlook for this school? LPS is an A-rated district under real financial strain with a possible mill levy override on the November ballot.
Midday
Buyer's agent and lender in person. Insurance quotes on two or three specific addresses.A bindable quote on a real address with the wind/hail deductible spelled out — not a state average. Then call LPS at 303-347-3300 for school assignments in writing.
Afternoon
Swim at Douglas H. Buck Community Center — $9.75 drop-in.Close to the perfect sixteen-weeks-pregnant activity, and it tells you what the local public amenities feel like.
Evening
Rockies vs. Orioles at Coors Field. The only home game in your window.Shaded upper level, third-base side. Cheap, easy in and out, and the Rooftop deck sits at exactly 5,280 feet. A good last night.
Tue Sep 1 — HomeDEN
Morning
Pack, and return the car by 10:30 AM.Your original 7 PM drop-off is 8.5 hours past the fourteen-day mark and triggers a full extra rental day. And leave the leftover fuel canisters with the host — they can't fly.
Standing rules
No fires, anywhere, all week
Jefferson County is at Stage 2. Staunton bans fires year-round regardless. Golden Gate's backcountry prohibits them. RMNP wilderness is stoves-only. There is no site on this itinerary where you can have a campfire — plan every meal around the canister stove. Re-check dfpc.colorado.gov 48 hours out.
Mornings outside, afternoons in
Storms build over the foothills in early afternoon and hit between roughly 2 and 6 PM, dumping hard for half an hour then clearing. In the mountains, be at camp by noon. In town, follow the same rhythm and you'll almost never get caught. Highs run ~88°F early, easing to ~84°F by month's end.
Water
Staunton: fill jugs at the car, no filtering needed. RMNP: filter everything, giardia is present park-wide. Golden Gate meadows: no potable water and questionable late-August flow — call the park. Dehydration at altitude is the single most likely thing to derail a day; over-provision.
Bears
August is hyperphagia — they're eating 20,000 calories a day. Canister 200 feet from camp in Rocky, bear box at Staunton and Golden Gate. Everything scented counts: food, toothpaste, chapstick, sunscreen, trash. Leave nothing scented in the car at a trailhead either.
Worth $40
Rent a satellite messenger — a Garmin inReach Mini is about $40 for the month. Cell service in Rocky is unreliable and the park describes GPS as inconsistent. Carry a paper map too. Cheap insurance you'll probably never use.
Wildfire smoke
The genuine wild card and unforecastable a month out. Late summer is peak smoke season on the Front Range. Check airnow.gov each morning and keep the museum and rec-center options as the ready substitute.
Where the hospitals are
From
Nearest ER
Drive
Wild Basin · Allenspark · Estes Park
Estes Park Health, 555 Prospect Ave
~30–40 min
Staunton SP · Conifer · Bailey
St. Anthony Hospital, Lakewood — Level I trauma, 720-321-0000
~40 min
Golden Gate Canyon
Lutheran Hospital, Wheat Ridge, or St. Anthony Lakewood
~40–50 min
Littleton / the cottage
AdventHealth Littleton, 7700 S Broadway — 303-730-8900
~12 min
Higher acuity
HCA HealthONE Swedish, Englewood — Level I trauma + Level III NICU
~9 mi
The five things that decide the move
School assignment in writing from LPS (303-347-3300) for every shortlisted address.
A bindable insurance quote on real addresses — roof age, Class 4 or not, and the wind/hail deductible spelled out. Hail drives roughly half of Front Range homeowners insurance cost, and percentage deductibles now mean $5,000–$10,000 out of pocket per event.
Actual tax bills from the county assessor, not medians. Your rental carries about $6,937 a year — well above the Littleton median, because Columbine Valley stacks town, fire, school, and water district levies.
The OB relationship. If you move in the fall, Casey transfers care in the third trimester. Tour both hospitals and confirm the practice and the hospital are in-network on the 2027 plan — an HCA facility and an AdventHealth facility often aren't both.
Sit in the neighborhood at 7 PM. Sunday the 30th, on the calendar above.
The honest money picture
The tax structure is close to a wash — Colorado's property tax rate is far lower (~0.59% versus ~1.55% in Bexar County), but Colorado charges a flat 4.4% income tax where Texas charges none, and remote income becomes fully Colorado-taxable the day you establish residency.
The house is what actually costs money. A ~$400K San Antonio house is roughly a ~$700K Littleton house, and that extra $300K of principal is about $1,900 a month before anything else.
Two numbers that land directly on you: childcare runs about 70% higher than San Antonio, arriving right when your daughter does, and groceries about 27% higher. Utilities are about 28% lower. And Denver Water has Littleton under Stage 1 mandatory restrictions through Oct 1 — two watering days a week plus a drought surcharge — so ask any seller what their summer water bill actually was.