Saturday morning, Laura and I quickly decided to pack our bags and head up to the mountains. I didn't tell her where we were going, because ... well ... I wasn't even quite sure. We ended up heading out on I-70 to Vail and then down to Leadville. Both places we hadn't been before.
Vail was beautiful and super fancy as expected. We didn't stay long.
Leadville is a quaint little old mining town at the top of the Rockies (10,200'), and we stayed the night there. They were running the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. A completely insane 100 mile race up and down and through the mountains surrounding Leadville. It was great to watch the experssions of the racers as they finally finished after 11 hours of torture. We found out the next morning that Lance Armstrong was in the race and came in 2nd. Lance entering their race was similar to The Beatles coming to America for this little town.
On Sunday, we got a later start than we would have liked, but still drove south of Breckenridge to a spot where you can climb four 14,000' mountains in a single day. We'd hope to climb at-least three of them, but ended up climbing none of them. We had a nice little adventure scrambling along the side of Mt. Democrat though trying to find the trail until the afternoon thunderstorms started rolled in. Oh well, next time we'll know where to go, and we'll get an earlier start!
We stopped in Breckenridge on the way back for lunch and reminisced a little. A year ago, we decided while visiting Breckenridge (after just getting engaged) that we had to move to Colorado. It's great to actually be here a year later!
And of course we took plenty of pictures!
Click here to see them.
On Tuesday night, I got back from spending eight fantastic days in Southern California with my family. I flew in on Tuesday, July 22, and spent a night with my brother (David) and his girlfriend (Megan) at their amazing Marina del Rey apartment. We had a fantastic meal at a local Thai place, spent some time by the marina, and watched a bunch of old family videos. Here's a pic of my brother getting ready to bike to work.
On Wednesday, I went to my grandparent's house for three days. My grandmother and I got to spend a lot of quality time together and had fun shopping in LA. We had some delicious meals together with my grandfather, and like always, it went by too fast. On Friday, my grandmother hosted a small luncheon with her friends to celebrate her granddaughter's soon-to-be wedding. Here's a shot of my grandmother, my mom and me -- three generations!
Saturday morning, my dad and I woke up at 5am and drove to the mountains for an overnight backpacking trip on Mount San Antonio (10,064'). The reason for our early departure? We volunteered to help carry aluminum roofing up to the San Antonio Ski Hut (around 8'200). I soon found I was somewhat useless trying to help carry these 12' long 70 lb. aluminum sidings up the switchbacks to the ski hut with my overnight backpack on. However, my dad was a big help... he made it look so easy!
We spent a few hours at the ski hut enjoying some refreshing beverages and some jalapeno hummus (yum), and around 4:30pm, we decided to make the trek to the summit. Around 6pm, we made it to the top, made dinner and tea, and spent a great night under the stars at 10,064. We hiked backed Sunday on the Devil's Backbone trail, which took us by the Mt Baldy ski resort. It was a great trip. It was a good chance to meet a lot of my dad's hiking buddies, spend some quality time with my Mtn Dad, and get a good workout.
Click here to see pictures of our backpacking adventure.
Monday, we went to Zuma beach for some relaxation and sunshine.
Click here to see pictures of our beach trip.
On Sunday, Ken and I hiked up
Mount Audubon, our first thirteener in Colorado, standing at 13,233'. Ken managed to get me up at 6am, we started the hike at 8:30am, and we summitted just before 11am. We were impressed with our speedy pace, and took some time to enjoy the views.
Click here to view some spectacular shots of Mount Audubon and the surrounding areas we saw on our hike.
Coming down, we saw the storm clouds head in, and we were lucky to make it back to the car just before it started to rain.
While it was a great hike with some fun rock scrambling, we feel it was just a tease. We'
re eager to start "bagging" some fourteeners and plan to start after I get back from my trip home. I'm headed to Southern California tomorrow to get in some much needed time with the family. Expect to see some pictures next week!
This past Sunday (July 13, 2008), Ken and I went hiking in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. After seeing the long line-up of cars trying to enter the scenic area, we decided to park below the fee station (a good 2.5m from the main parking lot) and walk in.
We made it to Brainard Lake, and after gazing at the surrounding thirteeners and fourteeners, we continued our hike to Long Lake (where I go
t about 15 mosquito bites), and then to Lake Isabel. We were blown away by the beauty of Lake Isabel and Isabel Glacier, and we couldn't resist making snowballs o
ut of the dirt speckled snow along the way.
Once at Lake Isabel, the snow fields were so inviting, we promptly got down to make (wet) snow angels. Hiking in, I warned Ken about
those snow banks and not to get too close to the water
, for fear the the snow/ice would break under his weight and take him into into the icy water. Well, hiking back, we noticed a huge
chunk of the ice had separated from the rest of the embankment, and both Ken and I took a sigh of relief that didn't happen earlier. (Although, I think Ken certainly triggered this.)
We really had a fabulous time... a great hike, great views, and the chance to be in shorts and a t-shirt (and a tank top) in July! Yes, my shoulders are pretty burnt and I have over 15
mosquito bites, but that was a small price to pay. After the 13+ mile hike at an elevation of 10,000+, we were relieved to see the "Leaving Brainard Lake Recreation Area" sign as we left the park and headed to our car.
About an hour later, we made it to one of our fav Mexican joints, Rincon del Sol, and were re-energized after two bowls of chips and salsa and a few glasses of water. We both took half of our dinner home in doggie bags and those left-overs made great meals last night.
Click here to see our pictures from the trip, and stay tuned for next week's adventure.
You may have been asking yourself, "What are Ken and Laura up to?" as there's been a lack of posts lately. We recently decided to use a new site to post our pictures, a long overdue switch and the reason for our stall in posts. We decided to go with Picasa, Google's Photo Application. After all, we use Google for practically everything else and Picasa integrates nicely with Blogger (Google's Blogging Software, which we also use). We love the new slideshow feature (check it out!), and as I know many of you like to right-click and save our photos, this option should let you save higher quality images. However, if you would ever like to print out a particular picture, please email me and I'd be happy to send you the full resolution (high-quality) image.
I went ahead and uploaded all our pictures since the beginning of 2008 on a public webpage: http://picasaweb.google.com/laurafaller. Hopefully this will be a good resource for you if you ever are looking for a specific album or picture that we've posted. For those that would like it, I'd be happy to upload our 2007 and 2006 pictures as well. I held off due to the long upload times and additional storage costs.
Our most recent albums:
- Alpine Glow Sunset - earlier this month, Ken and I observed the most gorgeous alpine glow sunset from our deck (facing East). This album also features some flowers Ken cut for me from our garden. (By the way, our garden is spectacular right now! I'll try to get up some pictures of it soon.)
- The Circus Rose - our wedding flower... elegant, beautiful, fun and vibrant. I love it.
- Boulder Creek Festival - Memorial Day event in Boulder with our neighbors, Jamie and Dwight (they're awesome) and two more new friends, Rachel and Ben. Only a few shots as it was raining out.
- Hike with Lee - Sunday stroll with our good friend, Lee Diamond, who flew in for the weekend for a Denver wedding.
- Green Mountain Friday Evening Summit - Ken and I got out for a Friday evening hike two weeks ago and ventured to the top of Green Mountain... followed by a lazy Saturday. :)
- Father's Day Video Chat - my brother (David) had the fabulous idea of surprising our dad and grandpa with a video chat (Marina del Rey in our living room). Just a few shots of the successful chat.
- Jamie's 25th Bday Party - last weekend we celebrated our neighbor Jamie's birthday... Scandinavian style. Jamie and Dwight made one incredible meal, and we made lots of new friends that night.
Last Saturday, while Laura and Sheri were out shopping for wedding dress accessories, I took the opportunity to hit the trails. I hiked to the top of Green Mountain (8,149’) which is the highest point directly above the Flatirons. It's just north of Bear Peak (8,461’), across Bear Canyon, which Laura and I hiked up a couple weeks before.
They should probably call it Dead Dog Mountain! I ran into a half-a-dozen dogs along the way. All of them looked like they were about to collapse trying to get up to the top. Their owners seemed to be doing just fine though. That's Boulder for you! In most other places it's the dogs running circles around the people.
Click here for some pictures I took. Professionally edited by Laura of course!
My mom flew in town last week and we spent four fun-filled days together... and we found my wedding dress!
While you won't find pictures of the dress in this post (for obvious reasons), please
click here to see some fun shots we took during her stay.
On Sunday, May 25, Ken and I went on an afternoon hike up the first Flatiron and (somehow) managed to get lost on the backside as we attempted to find the route towards Green Mountain. Once the sun started to go down and rain began to drip on our heads, we decided it was time to turn around. All in all, a great hike though!
Click here to see our pictures.
Stay tuned for pictures of Ken's solo adventure up Green Mountain on Saturday, May 31.
It was a good Sunday...Walnut Cafe for breakfast, and then a nice long hike up Bear Peak in South Boulder. We started out on Mesa Trail just before noon (at around 5,400'), and proceeded
to the summit via Fern Canyon Trail. (Note, one section of this trail gains 2,100' in 1.3 miles!) We made it to the summit at 8,461' for an elevation gain of over 3,000'. Going back, we took the Bear Canyon Trail which had incredible views of Indian Peaks. We had perfect weather...mid-70s, with a slight breeze and clear skies. We've got summit fever now, and hope to climb some other local peaks before venturing out to try some of Colorado's 54 fourteeners.
Click here to see shots of our hike up to Bear Peak.
This past Sunday we drove around Estes Park and fell in love with the views surrounding the
Black Canyon Inn. On Tuesday, we secured the site's
deck area for a small wedding on Friday, September 26 of this year.
Click here to see pictures of us exploring our wedding-site-to-be, in addition to pictures of us hiking around nearby Lily Lake (in the snow)! On the drive back, we were lucky to spot about a dozen bighorn sheep crossing the highway.
Saturday morning, Laura and I quickly decided to pack our bags and head up to the mountains. I didn't tell her where we were going, because ... well ... I wasn't even quite sure. We ended up heading out on I-70 to Vail and then down to Leadville. Both places we hadn't been before.
Leadville is a quaint little old mining town at the top of the Rockies (10,200'), and we stayed the night there. They were running the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. A completely insane 100 mile race up and down and through the mountains surrounding Leadville. It was great to watch the experssions of the racers as they finally finished after 11 hours of torture. We found out the next morning that Lance Armstrong was in the race and came in 2nd. Lance entering their race was similar to The Beatles coming to America for this little town.
On Sunday, we got a later start than we would have liked, but still drove south of Breckenridge to a spot where you can climb four 14,000' mountains in a single day. We'd hope to climb at-least three of them, but ended up climbing none of them. We had a nice little adventure scrambling along the side of Mt. Democrat though trying to find the trail until the afternoon thunderstorms started rolled in. Oh well, next time we'll know where to go, and we'll get an earlier start!
...and it wouldn't truly be a hike without spotting a snake, or a rattler for that matter!
