Why Did I Start Messy Bun and Mountain Sun?

That’s a great question.

I started Messy Bun and Mountain Sun with a pretty simple mission: to help people plan better trips, get outside more, and make the most of their time in Colorado—whether they’re visiting for a few days or have lived here for years.

When I first moved to Colorado in the early 2000s, I played rugby, which meant most of my weekends were already spoken for. And honestly, my first introduction to hiking here didn’t exactly win me over.

The first hike I went on promised a creek—which, as it turned out, was maybe a creek in the spring. The trail wandered behind neighborhoods, included a stretch along the road, and was definitely not what I had pictured when my friends told me how much they loved hiking in Colorado. I grew up near the Adirondacks in New York, so you can probably imagine my reaction. I was not impressed.

Thankfully, Colorado and I worked things out.

Over the years, I started exploring more, planning trips, finding places I loved, and learning something important: planning a great Colorado adventure isn’t always as easy as Instagram makes it look.

Like a lot of people, I use Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. But I kept running into the same problems. Places get hyped up without much context. A “day trip from Denver” turns out to involve four or more hours in the car. You save a dozen amazing places only to realize they’re nowhere near each other. Or you drive out to that adorable mountain café you saw on Instagram…and discover there’s not much else nearby to make the drive worthwhile.

That’s where Messy Bun and Mountain Sun comes in.

I want to take the guesswork—and the hours of scrolling, saving, Googling, and trying to piece everything together—out of planning. I want to help you find adventures that actually make sense for the time you have, whether that’s a weekend getaway, a full Colorado vacation, or just a little pocket of time in your everyday life.

And now, as I start a fully remote job myself, I’m thinking about that idea in a whole new way. How can we make the most of all the time we have—not just our vacations and weekends, but our lunch breaks, our 15-minute breaks, and those random little windows when we could step away from the screen and do something that makes us feel a little more alive?

Not every adventure has to be epic. Sometimes it’s a weekend in the mountains. Sometimes it’s a walk around the block with the sun on your face.

So close the laptop. Mess up your hair. Get outside. Get moving. Take the break.

There’s a whole lot of life waiting beyond the screen. Let’s go live it.