Storm Pass

So, the third and final day of hiking I decided to pick the trail we would take...Storm Pass. It is a moderate trail 3.7 miles one way with an elevation change of 840 feet. Hey, it does not sound so bad! Little did I know it was an unforgiving , steep 3.7 miles. Of course, we got the giggles about half way up because we could not believe how hard it was! We were anxiously awaiting the beautiful scenery we were going to view upon the arrival at the top.

And this is the scenery we had...

Granted, we could have kept going to Estes Cone but that would have been much more painful.

So, we took the rock pile as a sign and headed back down to Lily Lake.

Mills Lake

The second day we took a much easier 2 mile hike to Mills Lake.

...and I named this little guy Rosco.

The Rockies

Last summer Conor and I took a trip with my parents to Estes Park and Aspen, Colorado. While in Estes Park we hiked over 26 miles and saw some of the most beautiful scenery and thankfully no bears! Yes, that was my biggest fear...silly me!

The first hike we took was to the top of Twin Sisters Mountain which took us to over 11,000 feet-granted we started at 9,000 but when you are going up hill it feels like 26,000 feet. We did the hike in about 5 hours which was pretty darn good. My dad stopped frequently to check his heart rate to make sure he was not over doing it but we still made it in really good time. It amazes me to think he had a heart attack and quintuple bypass surgery 2 years prior to last summer. He was truckin' up that mountian. He is a trooper that is for sure!
This is a view from the top of Twin Sisters Mountain. It was absolutely amazing!

To give you some perspective as to where we were on the top...see the two peaks at the center of the moutain??...that is where the last photo was taken.

I survived hike #1.