Wednesday and Thursday were spent in Denver. Thursday morning we got up and headed out to Boulder, CO for a hike. When we arrived at the park we stopped into the ranger station to inquire about a good hike. Our conversation with the ranger went something like this:
Jonathan: "We're looking for about a 10 mile hike."
Ranger: "So you want to hike for 10 hours? It takes about an hour a mile out here."
Jonathan: "Okay, how about a 4 hour hike."
Ranger: "Are you all used to the altitude? How long have you been here?"
Jonathan: "Since last night."
Ranger: "Oh dear."
But in spite of the ranger's worries she still sent us out on the most strenuous hike at the park with strict instructions about altitude sickness. The first half of the hike was pretty brutal-vertical climbs and 1600 feet of elevation change. Slightly more strenuous than the Blue Ridge.. Jonathan wasn't fazed much by the challenge and probably could have ran the whole hike had it not been for his weak-link of a girlfriend and her breathing issues. We made it to the end in about 3.5 hours and it definitely felt like we accomplished something for the day. A nice change from our 12 hour car rides. We drove back to Denver, showered off the mountain and went out to eat at a rooftop restaurant across from the Rockies Stadium.
Friday we drove to a campsite in Gunnsion, CO. The site was in the midst of huge mountains and looked out over a lake. Awesome views and cool weather. At night we had to pull out the hats and gloves to stay warm...we're definitely not in the southeast anymore. Jonathan cooked a steak and peas for dinner and smores for dessert on his awesome fire. We packed up and left around 1 this afternoon and drove to Glenwood Springs, CO. We found a WalMart parking lot for us to sleep in for the night and got on our bikes to ride down to the local downtown. Very quaint with lots of coffee shops and granola clothing stores.
We plan to get up tomorrow and drive 45 minutes to Aspen to SNOWBOARD!! They got so much snow this winter that they've opened back up for the last two weekends and are offering a 6 hour lift ticket for a very reduced rate. We are beyond excited as snowboarding was not something we had expected to be doing on this trip!
Talk to you again when we get more internet service!
I can't believe you got to snowboard too! Awesome. I SO want to do a trip like this when I grow up.
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