“We got to plan another trip” we often say to each other, my husband Craig and I. Its easy to get caught up in the monotony of day to day life spending time on things that are necessary but not of value to fuel our hearts and souls. Something that’s always strengthened our love for life and each other, and kept the fire alive in our relationship has been adventures, big and small. In this series I’d like to share with you some of my favorite adventures I’ve had with my husband over the past 10 years we’ve been together. I encourage you to light the fire with your own relationships and make time for a new adventure whatever that might be and see where life takes you!
The second day of this trip was my favorite! It was also the most difficult. I could feel my heart pounding as we headed up about 1,000 feet in elevation gain in a quarter mile. I stopped a few times to catch my breath but was trying to move quickly because of the clouds on the horizon.
No one wants to get stuck in a thunderstorm while on a exposed ridge at 12,000 feet….but my body could only go so fast also. A older man in his 70’s with his son passed us by going down on the trail. I thanked him for the excuse to take a break while letting him pass.
As we got to the top of the ridge this day the trail steeply dropped off around us, with rock cliffs and beautiful views of mountains, lakes and trees fading off into the distance which seemed to go on forever.
I love that this is less than an hour from our house. It blows my mind sometimes how beautiful Colorado is and all the wild places there are to explore. This loop which is just outside of Nederland, Colorado was 14 miles. We did it in a leisurely 3 days which was nice. Since it was so close to civilization we could hear the sound of planes and helicopters as we fell asleep in our tent, which was such a weird juxtaposition.
As the sun started to go down on the second night Craig and I spent some time sitting on a rock checking out the view and just hanging out. He shortly crashed and I stayed up a little longer. As I sat quietly marmots jumped around the rocks calling to each other, a pica scurried out from a rock next to me with its mouse like ears and then quickly ran away after seeing me.
We ran into other hikers who had seen bears and moose but we didn’t run into any along our trip. In some ways, that’s good. We were being responsible in our food management and not inviting bears into our camp. But they still would’ve been fun to see along the trail. Well, I guess we’ll have to go back out again another time to search for wildlife. Craig says I scare them off with my stampy feet, which is probably true ;). We did run into a Rock ptarmigan. Craig almost stepped on it. They blend into their surrounding like a pro. Its actually in the photo below, see if you can spot it…its totally like where’s Waldo 🙂
We had a great time on this trip and I’m so glad we made it a priority to get out and spend some time with one another. I feel so blessed to have a man in my life that values nature, being outside and challenging adventures!
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