Hiking in Colorado

We spent last week in Colorado seeing family and getting in a week of vacation.  We started in Boulder for several days where we took advantage of our downtown location to enjoy the many of the fine restaurants on the Pearl Street mall.  Our days were spent out on the local hiking trails, we tackled Mount Sanitas our first full day there (not the brightest move on our part since we certainly weren't used to a low oxygen environment and anything with mount in the hike title usually implies going up a lot of hill) and then the next day did a 8-9 mile hike through the Chautauqua Park.  We stopped at the National Center for Atmospheric Research along the way to check out their museum and learn about the research going into weather predictions - according to one of their displays, weather forecasting is getting more accurate, contrary to what our local forecasters seem to be able to do. 

These two hikes got us a little toughened up for our hikes to come later in the week.  When we weren't hiking, we stopped in for a visit with Jo's brother and family who lives nearby to Boulder.  It was great catching up with everyone and enjoying a great Italian meal (Pat is wonderful with pasta!).  That evening, to settle our dinner, we played bocce and then sat and watched the hummingbirds that visit their backyard.  A couple of days later, Pat took us to one of her favorite spots.  It is a local restaurant that has 20-30 hummingbirds all flitting around.  I managed to get one to land on my finger but only briefly.  It was amazing to stand there with five to ten hummingbirds zipping around you.

We finished up our stay in Boulder with walking around the University of Colorado campus and touring their natural history museum.  Then later getting a massage to ease our aching hiking muscles before heading up to Estes Park to meet up with my family.  My entire family gathered in Estes Park to celebrate my parents' sixty wedding anniversary, which in my mind is a tremendous accomplishment (especially getting through the 70's and 80's when everyone seemed to be getting divorced).  We spent our time there enjoying Rocky Mountain National Park and numerous games of cards. 

For hiking, one day we hiked from the Fern Lake trailhead over to Bear Lake trailhead with my brother and his family.  It was a great day for a hike and we enjoyed a lunch break at Odessa Lake along the way which had great vistas of the surrounding mountains.  It always amazes me to see snow banks in August.  The next day Jo and I did a short hike to Gem Lake and then everyone piled into cars to drive Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitor Center.  Along the way we got to see a little bit of everything that the park has to offer:  elk, grand vistas, scary drop offs from the road, bighorn sheep, and snow.  The snow wasn't only on the ground from the winter, we actually were in the middle of a snow/hail storm for about 20 minutes.  When they say the weather can change quickly up there, they mean it.

Our last full day there, Jo and I tackled a 13-14 mile hike where we did a long loop hike from the Lumpy Ridge trailhead.  This was probably our favorite of all the hikes this week, since we went from meadows to pine forests to rock climbs and for the majority of the hike we didn't see another soul.  We took one of the side hikes into see Bridal Falls which involved Jo having to climb a few rocks - which she always loves...not.  But she made it up and more importantly back down although she had a little help from a nice gentleman from Texas on one of the rock climbs.  We were somewhat disappointed that we didn't come across any elk on our hike since it seemed like a perfect place for elk to be grazing.  But we did manage to see a doe and her fawn along with the usual mix of ground squirrels and several different types of birds - although no hawks or eagles that, according to the hiking guide, can be seen in the cliffs along the hike.

While in Estes Park we celebrated my birthday with a cake and some wonderful gifts.  But the big celebration for my parents was held at the Stanley Hotel.  We enjoyed a great dinner there, although the ambiance was less than we had hoped for - the restaurant is adjacent to the bar area without any wall to break the noise or the viewing of the three big screen TVs.  Everyone also did their bit to help the local economy by doing some shopping in Estes Park.

For us, we had a really relaxing week off getting to catch up with our families and enjoying the outdoors.  But all good things must end, so it is back to the routine, at least until we are off to somewhere else.