Chief Mountain

We got up early (a theme of the past couple weeks!) and headed for the mountains. We stopped at Starbucks for a quick breakfast and coffee (fine, I cheated. I needed the caffeine for the altitude headaches) and then charged on westward! It was a gorgeous morning and we were excited to hike!

The sun still coming up and we're already on the trail!

Full steam ahead! 

This way!!

Me: It is still early. 2 more miles?!

Views. They made up for it.

You guys, this was NOT a tough hike. The trail was pretty awesome, really. The climb was steady and the footing was clear. The altitude, though, was insane. We started at over 11,000 and we felt it with every step. I kept asking how I was supposed to breathe with no air. Jackson got lightheaded. We both laughed at stuff that wasn't funny. Ohhhh man. The human body never ceases to amaze me. It just adapts. You just keep going. You don't think you can, but you do. I didn't know if my knee would hold up on this one because I could not tape it beforehand (still recovering from being overtaped in Canada). It pretty much did. I took 2 ibuprofen and just kept moving. I cannot explain the gratitude that I feel when I am hiking. I'm so glad that I can walk. I'm so glad that I'm still here to live out this awesome life with Jackson. Sure, I feel quite a bit of pain at the end of the day. I wake up feeling a lot older than my years, but I'm still going. I'm still here. And that is what makes it all worth it!

Summit!! 

Amazing.

Views for days

Jackson scrambling down the summit

Taking a break to plan how to get down safely

So happy that we did it!

Ok, not a pro at the GoPro yet! HA!

There we go: Petefish!

A gorgeous trail

We left Chief Mountain and went to Juniper Pass. It was a gorgeous little picnic site that actually had restrooms. Score! Jackson can use the great outdoors. It is a little trickier for me! There was a little hike to be done at the pass so we did it and loved the views.

The Rockies

Pano.

I love this guy!!!

We stopped at Echo Lake on the way down the mountain. It was nothing compared to the lakes in Banff National Park, but it was still quite lovely.

Echo

The sky was the most brilliant blue

The clouds make Mt. Evans look like a volcano!

I'm obsessed with the trees here and everywhere

We spent quite a few hours in the mountains before deciding that we wanted some lunch. We headed to the Cherry Creek area to have late lunch at one of our favorites: Cherry Cricket.

Jackson said this cold beer was amazing after the hike.
I'll never understand pee (aka beer) tasting good. ;)

His giant burrito and my tacos

The Cherry Cricket did not disappoint. After shopping for a bit we headed back for the hotel to SHOWER! We were pretty excited for the NFL to be on again so we watched my teams win (Giants, Seahawks) and Jackson's team lose (Colts). We got an update that MacKenzie was doing just fine and helping Mom babysit some of her friend's kids. MacKenzie isn't normally a big fan of kids (she prefers all eyes to be on her, imagine that), but we were glad to see she was behaving.

MacKenzie helping to babysit

We took a long walk around our old neighborhood and shared a burrito bowl at Chipotle for dinner. They've been my favorite recently and there are about 67 locations in Denver so that's nice. We went for an evening drive and got lost, but it was just nice to be out and about in the lovely weather. The memories that Denver holds for us are many. We just love it here.