Rocky Mountain Getaway

 At the beginning of this month, DH and I went away for about a week, on a vacation that was supposed to happen in 2019.  We'd talked about it nearly two years ago, and DH was going to book it, but then he didn't (cuz he forgot, repeatedly, being during the period of time when his job ate his life. . . ) and when he finally looked into it summer 2019, the place we wanted to go had no vacancies for the time period we wanted to go in--Fall, (not ski season, not spring, not summer).

When he told me the trip wasn't happening last year, the news didn't go over well. Honestly, I was crushed.  I'd all ready been repeatedly crushed by DH's job eating his (and consequently, my) life in 2019.  It was really, really difficult to treat my destroyed dream of a much anticipated break our inability to go there as a minor blip in the road of life.

So, when DH checked into it late this Spring and found that there were openings for this Fall (thank you, Covid!! and people freaking out about Covid/travel!), we jumped at the chance.  Booked our room and our flight immediately, and put it on the calendar in big black non-erasable letters. And thanks to  the fact that because of Covid DH is working remotely for the next fairly indefinite future (at least until next summer, his employer says), having an uninterrupted week of vacation actually happened.  Hallelujah!

At a time when Michigan weather was turning grey and wet and chilly, it was absolutely revitalizing to jet off to Colorado with it's blue, blue, blue sunny skies. I cannot tell you how refreshed and energetic I felt after just a few days.  I think my batteries got fully recharged.

not clouds: white smoke from a distant wildfire

The main point of this trip was not to sight-see around the Rocky Mountains.  It was to return to one particular place we'd been back in 2016, when DH took me to Colorado the first time to show me some of the places he goes when he's on test trips (for work) at altitude.  Our destination was Breckenridge, and the plan was to HIKE.  Specifically, to hike the Peaks Trail that runs between Breckenridge and Frisco.  I wanted to hike that trail. All 8 miles of it.  In 2016, we'd done about a mile, then turned around and went back, due to storm clouds rolling in. This time, I wanted to hike the entire thing, no matter what.  I may have become a little fanatical about it.

I'll cut right to the chase and say that WE DID IT!!  We took a couple days of short hikes to acclimate to altitude, and worked into it.  The third day we were in Breckenridge, we packed a backpack with water, sandwich wraps for lunch, as well as a multitude of snacks containing both protein and carbs, and hit the trail at 9:00 a.m.  Face it, we're middle aged and both of us are overweight.  We wanted to have as many daylight hours as possible to hike this trail because we weren't going to stop until we reached the Frisco end of it.  Well, we anticipated that we'd make lots of rest stops, but we weren't going to call it a day until we'd reached the Frisco.

It wasn't nearly as bad as DH thought it would be, he later confessed to me.  The longest we'd hiked this year so far had been 4 miles, and that had been tough for him.  He'd kind of been dreading the Peaks Trail, but also kind of wanted to master it. We did do it the easy way, from Breck to Frisco, which has more downhill portions than if you hike it from Frisco to Breckenridge.  With rest stops, as well as a stop for lunch (ham, aged cheddar cheese, lettuce, red pepper and onion in a spinach wrap, YUM), the trail took us 5 hours and 10 minutes start to finish.

That was the longest one-day hike we did.  And we're not exactly sure what the true length of the trail is.  One sign says 8 miles, another says 10, along the way there are signs that say Breck 3mi Frisco 5mi as well as Breck 4mi Frisco 6mi. Interesting math out there in the wilderness. Whatever length it was, it was a very nice hike, with lots of changes of scenery, and I could easily add over a dozen more pictures that I took along the way.

The other days we did shorter hikes, basically whatever area struck our fancy.  We did some hiking just outside of town and basically on the ski hills of Breckenridge.  That was where we saw a collective total of 5 moose in one day, three of which were bulls, and two of whom wanted to walk on the trail we were currently on.  When you confront a moose on the trail, you backtrack and yield the trail to the moose!

moose, beside the trail we'd intended to follow

Seeing--and hearing, the bulls were bellowing--moose was exciting. I'll say that it makes your heart race when you come around a corner to find a moose only 10 yards away from you! I did not expect to have close encounters of the moose kind.

We also hiked to see a few waterfalls and lakes.  The first ones we thought would be easy, as the trail was rated 'moderate', the same as the Peaks Trail we'd mastered earlier in the week, and it was only 1.3 miles to the waterfall plus another 0.4 miles to the lake.

Um, it was not easy.  It wasn't even moderate in some (alot of) parts. I think it was miscategorized on our list of trails.  Or a sadist rated it as moderate.  It was the longest 1.7 miles I've hiked in my life.  In fact, the round trip (so, 3.4 miles?) took us only 40 minutes shorter than the 8+ miles of the Peaks Trail.  The terrain was interesting, and when was over, we were glad we'd hiked it. But truly, it was grueling. We thought about quitting a few times, and each time we met up with hikers older than us coming back from the end of the trail who told us seeing the lake would be worth it.  How could we quit when 70 & 80 year olds had made it to the lake??

When the sign points up, you go UP!

It seemed like the trail was pretty much one unending trip up.  Up over big rocks, up through winding forest trail, up across a fallen log that was the bridge to get over a creek, up up up until you were above the tree line.  Then, you reached the waterfall.  And if you wanted to continue to the lake, you went up even more!  But the lake was quite a sight when we reached it.  Elevation there was over 12,000 feet.

Like our elders said, we were glad we'd soldiered on and made it to the far end of the trail.  

A much easier lake and waterfall hike followed the next day.  We first drove to the end of the road where you could park and walk along the top of a dam.  It was incredibly windy (and cold!) on the dam, so we quickly walked across that, then meandered down another trail that was a less direct path back to where we'd parked.  In our absence, a mama goat and her kid had decided that the parking area was a great place to lick for minerals.

So we had close encounters of the mountain goat kind that day.

We waited for access to our vehicle, then drove back down the road to another parking area, where you could walk down to the lower lake below the dam.  Some more hiking commenced as we explored that area and tried to figure out if there was a way to cross the lake to get to a trail we could see on the other side.

 

Without getting our feet wet, there wasn't.  And neither of us particularly cared for the idea of having wet feet.  So it was back to the car, and down the road in search of the head of the trail we wanted to explore on the other side of the lake.

We did find it; not a road but more of a trail marked for foot and orv traffic.  The sign had a picture of a Jeep on it, and as DH said, "we're driving a Jeep" (a crossover of a Jeep, but still a Jeep), so he turned off onto that path and drove until he came to a turnout for parking.  

From there, we followed the path on foot until we came to a large waterfall. It was a great place to sit and have some lunch, so we did.

I am really glad we were able to get away and go hiking in Colorado, even if it was a year later than we'd intended.  It was such a great trip, especially in light of all the craziness and unpredictability that has been 2020. I think that we are now mentally ready to handle whatever the remainder of this year brings our way.