Still Catchin' Up: Camping in the Cold

A while back, Dave somehow convinced us (mostly me - Matt was excited) to go camping - in SEPTEMBER! In case you didn't know, the mountains can get a little chilly in September. And in case you haven't read my blog in the past, I HATE the cold. Seriously.

But Matt has learned the proper way to get me to do something I don't want to do: tell me it involves the purchase of new toys - and then buy me new toys! This time, we got new, fancy sleeping bags! They're down and cozy and extremely warm and awesome. So, I quit my complaining and packed my bag for a weekend of fall colors and cold.

It wouldn't be long before I would regret ever deciding to go.

Ok, not really. I just like being super dramatic. But there were some crazy, bad things that made the weekend quite adventurous. We'll get to that in a bit.

Anyway, off we went to the mountains - more specifically, the area around Marble, Colorado. And after a quick stop at a roadside waterfall...

Ahh.

We made it to our campsite!

I snapped this picture of our beautiful car - so proud of it. I had no idea that my pride would quickly change to disappointment. Massive disappointment. (Ha, this dramatic thing is awesome!)

Anyway, we had a delicious lunch at a local barbecue place, and readied ourselves for a little hike to see some fall colors. This was when I came face-to-face with "disaster" #1: I forgot my shoes! I was wearing awesome North Face sandals, but I'd meant to bring my trail shoes for the hike. Since I'd forgotten them, I had to hike in sandals. And it wasn't fun.

But oh, well. The hike was still nice. Unfortunately, the fall colors were not quite what we were hoping for ("disaster" #2). Dave had planned to get some good photos on this trip, but the aspens at the higher altitude were not turning the beautiful yellows we were looking for. So, we hiked and saw some pretty views and got a few glimpses of some pretty colors in bushes and lower altitude trees. No wall-worthy photos, but still fun.

Hiking.

See? Still pretty.

Hiking. We came across the old foundation of what was supposed to be condos for Marble Ski Resort - before the resort closed. Matt and Dave, being the avid skiers they are, were pretty giddy about this discovery.

After our hike, Dave had the bright idea (that's right, I'm blaming it all on you, Dave) to head up a rocky road to Crystal Mill. It's supposed to be beautiful up there, and Dave was still hoping to get some awesome pictures on this trip. We started up the road, which was 4-wheel-drive only, thinking our nifty little Subie could handle anything it came across.

Enter disaster #3: The Big One.

To give our Subie a little credit, it wasn't the car itself that failed us, but one of the tires. And to give the tire a little credit, it was a REALLY rocky road. We just hit a rock perfectly, and our tire was very suddenly flat.

The bad news (other than the flat) was that the road was very narrow and pretty busy. There was no way than another car was going to be passing us in either direction. The good news was that the boys changed the tire faster than I've ever seen anyone change a tire in my life.

Flat tires suck.

The other bad news was that we still had to make it back down the 3 miles of road we'd already traveled (we obviously were no longer trying to make it to the mill). They put on the flat, turned the car around (in a terrifyingly narrow section!), drove to a wider section of road, moved the spare from the front tire to the back tire (which involved putting the flat back on, switching the spare and the back tire, and moving the back tire to the front), and VERY SLOWLY drove back down the road, watching carefully for rocks.

It was so fun! Don't believe me? Well, that's because it really sucked.

After driving back to the nearest town and searching for anyone who sell us a tire at 6:00 on a Saturday night, we finally gave up and went back to camp. We were in desperate need of relaxation, so we had some hot dogs, some beer, and some fire before heading to bed.

Camping!

I somehow made it through the freezing cold night, despite the fact that my toes were exposed to the elements through my stupid sandals. My new sleeping bag was ridiculously warm, and we woke up to a beautiful, new day. The bacon Matt was cooking when I got up may have made the world look a little more lovely, but it was a nice morning, nonetheless.

Good mornin', good mornin' to you.

I took a walk to see the lovely fall colors, which were prettier at our campsite than anywhere on our hike. I took lots of pictures to show my kids at school!

So we packed up and drove off to find a tire, which resulted in the purchase of FOUR tires for LOTS of money. But now we have awesome tires, and that's good.

Goodbye, pretty mountains.

So, it was actually not a bad weekend. Things didn't go quite as awesomely as we'd hoped, but being in the mountains on a crappy camping trip is still WAY better than being in the city doing work. Even when it's majorly cold.

Leaf Peeping

Yep, that's right: Leaf Peeping. I had never heard the term until this season, and I think it sounds pretty ridiculous. But the act of hiking through fall foliage is less ridiculous, and actually quite fun!

A few weeks ago, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to take a familiar hike. Of course, things looks quite a bit different without the few feet of snow on the ground.

Aspens and evergreens.

I'm hiking!

Our end destination, Mill's Lake, was much less frozen than the last time we were there. That meant we couldn't go traipsing out into the middle of the lake this time. At least it was awfully pretty from the shore.

The only not-great part about the pretty hike was that the Park is BUSY during leaf peeping season. We managed to see a little wildlife:

A chipmunk, with a GIANT mushroom in his mouth. It was pretty hilarious.

But for the most part, we only saw people. Lots of people. So instead of taking the same path as our winter wonderland hike and continuing up to Loch Vale, we were content to get a little further away from tourists and call it a day.

Luckily, on the way down the trail, we were able to catch a few spots in between crowds to get some more pictures of the foliage. Looking through the pictures, you'd never know that there were so many people around us!

Small aspen grove with mixed greens and yellows.

For the following pictures, keep in mind that I'm not a photographer. I just wanted pictures of the pretty colors, and I realize that my composition may be a little off. Oh, well.

At the end of the trail.

Despite the crowds and my poor picture-taking abilities, we got to see some beautiful fall colors. And the following weekend, we tried again. This time we headed up Crosier Mountain. We saw fewer people (by a lot - the trail was practically deserted) and we had our photographer friend, Dave, along to do the foliage some real justice. Unfortunately, we were a little low in elevation to get the good color we were looking for. But hey, it was still hiking. And we like hiking.

The last of the summer flowers. A harebell, my favorite.

A tiny bit of color. And Dave.

The guys amid the green aspens. Sadness (that the aspens are green, not that it's a picture of the guys).


A little bit of yellow toward the top.

While we didn't see a lot of color, we still got to summit a mountain! We hadn't been on a summit hike all season, and in case you were wondering, sitting on your butt doing homework all summer does not prepare you to summit a mountain. There were a couple of moments where I wasn't sure I'd make it. But make it I did. And without homework to get in the way next summer, I'm vowing to summit at least five mountains. At least.

Anyway...

At the summit.

Proof that I made it.

Resting.

"I am all that is man!"

So, the whole peeping at leaves thing turned out to be pretty cool. The leaves around Denver are finally starting to turn, making me almost ready for fall. I'm never really ready to say good-bye to summer, but I suppose the pretty fall colors makes it a little easier.