Mt. Sniktau

On Sunday Travis and I decided to tackle Mt. Sniktau (no, I still don't know how to pronounce it!) - we decided we weren't quite motivated enough to get up at 4:30 a.m. and climb a 14er, so we settled for a mere 13er. The hike reviews I was reading said it was a relatively easy Class 1 hike with just a bit of Class 2 thrown in... we can handle that, right?!

The mountain was right at the continental divide - pretty views from the road! Is there really any need to hike up further? View of A-Basin ski runs during the off-season. Soon enough these will be snow-covered. Ugh.

The reviews I read warned of "false peaks", meaning, you hike to the top of the horizon, and then as soon as you reach the top you see another peak. Alas, you are not at the top! There were 2 or three of these, like the picture below. Just when we thought we might have reached the top we looked over... and saw the REAL summit.

As is now tradition, a 360 view from the top. Only 13,200-ish feet high. Notice Travis's shoulder as he ducks out of the way once he realizes I'm taking a video. He's camera-shy. We were the only ones on the summit for quite a while - it was nice!

We made it! Much nicer weather for this hike than we had for the 14er.

Taking a nap on a rock. Travis actually fell asleep. I did not. We were, after all, laying on a rock.

Heading back down to one of the false peaks we passed. See the trail along the saddle back of the mountain? You don't want to lose your balance - pretty steep on both sides!

We saw mountain goats! They're at the very bottom of the picture, and they blend in pretty well. I guess nature is pretty good at that :)

It is always better to look up once you have finally made it back down! Less intimidating that way. Here you can see the many false peaks - we hiked to the top of the pointy peak that you can barely see, in the center of the photo.

Another great hike! May be my last long hike for the season. My knees would probably be more than fine with that :)

Bridal Veil Falls

Heidi, Marlena, and I tackled the trails today at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Bridal Veil Falls, here we come! (Granted, this was about 1/2 there)

Past a ranch...

The first part of the trail was very meadow-esque. If we had been there a couple of weeks earlier we would have seen the wild flowers in full bloom

Nice tree root

We made it to the falls!

Had to hike to the top - can't just stop at the bottom of the falls, come on.

View from the top
Heading back down

Heidi's hitch-hiker on the way back. Yes, we insisted that we take pictures before we removed it from her backpack. Heidi's quote, "How big is it? Wait, scratch that. I don't want to know. Just get rid of it and then I'll look at the picture."

Follow that trail

mid-week

...update. Hmm... not much exciting to report, I'm afraid! It is hot. Over 100 today (which is old news to the Midwest folk!) The nice thing about CO is that due to the lack of humidity, the shade is about 20 degrees cooler than the sun. Still didn't stop me from sweating for an hour AFTER I was done with my run yesterday. That's what lack of air-conditioning will do to you! Ugh.

I'm meeting with one of my mentees today (an incoming DU student). Should I really be any one's mentor?! We shall see... The fact that they're already moving to Denver means that school is around the corner. YIKES!!!!

Bowling and coasters and concerts, oh my!

For what started as a quiet weekend... it ended up pretty busy! (And it is only Sunday morning. Okay, technically afternoon.)

Friday was summer graduation at DU and my friend Heidi graduated with her Master's! In only one year... wow. A group of us went to Buckhorn Exchange, the claimed oldest restaurant in Denver, to have a celebratory lunch. We ate rattlesnake, alligator, and, of course, buffalo. Yum!
I think this place is the older, slightly more established, Uncle of CJ's on the Lake...on crack! SO many animals staring at you as you ate.

Friday evening we got some friends together to go bowling at Golden Bowl - a slightly dodgy bowling alley in Golden, CO. The Chinese restaurant is no longer a part of the attraction, unfortunately. We were really looking forward to bowling and broccoli chicken, but oh well.

Saturday Travis and I decided to spend a lazy day in Denver, being as all our weekends had been pretty busy as of late. After some awesome Mexican food for lunch we decided, hey, it's a pretty nice day for an amusement park! So we headed to Elich Gardens, formerly Six Flags, here in Denver. After paying the hefty entrance fee we decided we would stay and ride every ride twice to get our money's worth. And we would have done it, too!

.

Until we got a call from Travis's friend saying, "Hey, I've got two free tickets to Mile High Music Festival tonight - Jack Johnson goes on stage in an hour, want to come?" Ummm, YES! So we rode our last ride and headed out to the festival. We got our tickets as well as, dun dun dunnnn... VIP bracelets! Wow, we weren't expecting that! So we headed to the VIP tent, got a couple of drinks, and then sauntered to the VIP area at the front of the stage. All the while trying to ignore the death-looks from the fans who had been waiting by the stage for hours to get good seats. Awesome concert - we owe them BIG TIME!

Hikers vs. Mt. Bierstadt

On a bit of a whim Renee, Travis and I decided to hike a 14er on Sunday. (Okay, maybe it was my whim, but they agreed!) 14er is Colorado-speak for a mountain that is over 14,000 feet high. Because you can't just hike any ole' mountain here, you have to go for the big guys. We decided to go for Mt. Bierstadt, which is know as a great 14er for beginners and classified as "easy". I'd like to meet the man who classified this and learn his definition of "easy" because it sure isn't the same as mine!

The thing about 14ers, well, the mountain in general, is that storms generally come rolling in after noon. Hence, you best be down the mountain, or at least back below the tree line, before the storms come in. This is what led us to leave our house at the crazy hour of 4:30 a.m.

Arrived at Mt. Bierstadt around 6:45 a.m. As you can see, the top is covered in clouds. Good thing we can't see how high it is or we may have turned back! Even hidden in the clouds, I was apprehensive. Judging by my face.

Our view as we hiked up. And up. And up. The clouds were lifting as we were hiking, so we never quite caught up to them.

Getting there! You can see we are about cloud-level here.

We found snow!

Finally at the top! 14,060 ft. high. A bit windy, a tad cloudy, and a huge lack of oxygen up here.

Can you spot Renee?

The clouds blew over and the views were awesome!

A 360 degree view from the top! Please excuse the shakiness... my legs were a bit wobbly!


Having a snack before heading back down.

Cairns marked the trail once it was no longer visible. If only they were all this easy to spot.

Looking back up - we were at the tip top of that! This is where the trail ended and the scrambling began. Scrambling is Colorado-speak for maneuvering over rocks and boulders, sometimes on all fours!

3 hours up, 2 hours back down, and we are finally back at our car! Yup, we were at the very top of that mountain! Hikers vs. Mt. Bierstadt - who won? Technically we are alive, but moving quite slowly. So the jury is still out on that one!

I feel like mowing some stripes!

Got to spend the day on the golf course today for a WFP event! It was an awesome day but I must admit, it made me miss good ol' Champions. I felt an urge to mow a green and make some stripes! Marth, Erin, I'm sure you understand :) The event was at Sanctuary which is an AWESOME golf course that is solely for non-profit and charity fund raising events. And raise funds we did! Well over a quarter of a million dollars for the organization. Pretty cool idea for a golf course. WOW look at that view!

Pretty nice backdrop for golf - no wonder Golf Digest rates it in their top 100 most beautiful courses. This is before the storm moved in and we had to stop because of lightening. That was a pretty cool show, too!

Events are exhausting! Sheesh, how on earth did I used to do this all the time? Was I crazy?

A Rodeo Birthday

I used to complain that because my birthday was in the summer, it was hard to celebrate. People were always on vacation and our family was usually heading somewhere, as well. Well, as it turns out, that isn't such a bad thing! Nebraska's Big Rodeo fell on my birthday weekend this year, and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate. Travis and I headed the 6 hours to the town of Burwell, NE (population: 1,100. My mom is related to 1/2 of them, probably.) Met Mom, Dad, and Lori's family out there to head to the Friday night rodeo. As you can see, everyone was ready in their rodeo gear! Yes, even Abigail.

Saturday morning was the parade, and, as is now tradation, we took a family picture. This is my Mom's side.... well, most of them.

The parade had a LOT of green tractors... and this float.



Alex and Ella figured out that the harder you wave, the more candy they throw at you!

My favorite girls came down on Saturday! They even made it in time for the rodeo - VERY impressive. Felt the need to get a group tractor picture, complete with straw in the mouths. If it would have been a red tractor Alex would have made us delete the picture. Seriously.

Ready for rodeo day #2! The guys were bonding... Alex is definitely a fan of Travis.

Chariot races!

Look! I won a free pair of Wranglers! (really)

After the wild horse race... notice how none of these horses actually have riders. I'd say the horses won this one. Pretty entertaining race!

Aww, goodnight, rodeo.

Before we left on Sunday we all met for family dinner. I think the girls were glad they stayed for the freshest corn and beef ever :)

And birthday cake, of course. If there is a piece with pink flower missing from the middle of the cake, I think we found the culprit!

Thanks, everyone for making it a great birthday! Edum, Katie, and B - I'm so glad you were able to make it for a day, that was awesome! Next year is the 90th Rodeo- who's in? Ladies? Peanut? Travis?