Danger & Adventure Around Every Corner: August 2013

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Colorado: Part Two - Back Again

After an awesome trip to Lander, we drove back to Colorado. G&G had a date night at the Rockies game so we headed up to Evergreen. Daddy was excited to meet his niece for the first time. There were no arguments from the boys, they LOVE going to Aunt Kate and Uncle Mark's house!!

The tree house is a huge hit!!

Look at this little angle! She is just so sweet!

Logan is doing great because he knows he can still get his Mommy time.

I forgot how much newborns sleep. So peaceful!

Uncle Micah drove up from New Mexico to meet us. We invited him to come up to Evergreen to do a little hiking with the family.

Lucas fueling up.

Zarr and Uncle Micah

Uncle Micah and Daddy

Queen Kiri.

Axel, Logan, Aunt Kate and Amelie.

Uncle Mark.

Sleeping again.

Mommy & Lucas...come on boy, eat that granola bar! :)

Logan was very sad to say good-bye to Uncle Mike.

We left the country and headed to Boulder to meet up with G&G at Zolo's Mexican Grill. The food is delicious but calling it "Mexican" is a stretch but I would definitely recommend it. After dinner, look who I caught with the camera?!

Ha!! We got you Grandma. :)

Someone was half excited and half intimidated. This was one big pile!

The next morning, we woke up at 4am to head out to Estes Park for one last climbing day. Daddy discovered an area that stayed shady all morning, I believe it's called Wizard's Gate. The parking area is at the trailhead for the Twin Sisters Peaks and then we hiked up and up and up....we get lost...then hiked over and over and over...then we were there! :) Uncle Micah joined us for our little adventure. We had been warned that missing the correct trail cut off could lead to an extra long hike to an already long 45 minute normal hike. Yep, the warning was correct but now we know just where to sneak up to the other trail. It was a huge relief when we realized we had found it and still had plenty of shade to make it worth it. It was an even bigger relief to Uncle Micah to discover that his awesome big sister brought coffee!!

The view out towards Estes.

Another view towards town.

Daddy belaying Mommy.

Mommy got worked! The routes were really good but very deceiving and way steeper than they looked. After a few weeks climbing short bouldery routes in WY, this was not in the cards for this old lady. :) It was still fun to check out and I'm sure we will be going back. It's a great shady high altitude summer crag.

Daddy and Mommy...the rock angles were so weird and really tricked your brain.

Daddy did awesome, sending one of the harder 5.13s.

Uncle Micah must have been a little bored...here is his artistic version of his sister belaying.

We were done climbing by noon and headed back to Longmont. Daddy got the full tour of Miss. Daisy the Airstream, Grandma took the boys to Target (Grandma is good at spoiling these two!) and Uncle Micah drove home.

Daddy flew out early the next morning but we had one more day in Colorado. G&G had to work so Mommy took the boys to Estes. That Twin Sister Trail looked like a perfect activity for a Mom and her two boys who were all in high altitude hiking shape. The boys were excited! Probably because I forgot to tell them that it was a 7 mile round trip hike. Ooops! :) We did talk about taking our time and bagging two summits with one hike which they thought was pretty cool.

Mile 1 overlook with a wonderful view of Longs Peak. Maybe next summer we will climb that one?

Above tree line and nearing the summit.

Here is our view off towards the North.

During the hike, I found some photos other hikes had posted in a description of the hike. It was super fun to reach these milestones along the way. Rock weather station was a true sign that we were just about to the West Summit.

Moments later, we were there!!!

Here is the view from the West summit looking at the East summit. The weather station is out of view but just below us.

The view to the South.

There's Long's Peak again. That big dark shadow is called The Diamond and is full of rock climbs...long multi-pitch rock climbs and ice climbs too.

The whole crew at 11,413 feet! I was so proud of both of them. They both hiked all the way to the top without me carrying them!! Lucas also squeezed out a smile right here after I about took off his finger stepping on it by accident. Sorry Lucas!

The boys weren't super thrilled about going up the next summit but we were so close and it was less than 10 minutes to do so. We talked about the possibility of there being a summit registry which they doubted for sure. I think they thought it was just a trick to get them to try.

Lucas' face pretty much sums up his doubt. Axel, just below the East summit, was all about finding this magical registry!

To everyone's surprise, there was a registry!!! Whoot!! Yep, Mommy does know what she is talking about every once in awhile. :) It was like opening a treasure chest!

Our little blurb on July 22, 2013.

I think Axel was a little disappointed but he thought it was cool that his name was going to be in there forever. :)

Mommy and her boys at 11,428ft...YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!! It's always nice to be on top but then you are quickly reminded that you are only halfway done! Now for the hard part, going down.

Mommy helped Axel a little on the rocky parts of the trail. All in all, he hike at least 5 miles by himself and Lucas did the entire 7 miles himself...he's too big to carry now! :)

I very rarely take photos of myself but someday it will be fun to look back and see that I had a killer six-pack after an awesome 5 weeks out west!

The next morning, we headed to the airport and were off to Atlanta for one night. The following day, we were flying to Boston, MA for one week!!

My little sleeper on the airplane.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Wyoming: Part One - Wild West

On the morning of the 4th of July, we drove to Lander, WY to start a two week climbing trip. We were so excited and loved being back in our mountain town element. We have great friends who open up their home to us and let us stick around probably longer than they really want. WE LOVE YOU STEVE & ELLEN! :)

Lander is one of those towns that feels like home to us. It's a smaller town and I do believe there is no Walmart which makes my heart sing. It's really the climbing community that we gravitate to. They have been extremely welcoming to our entire family for years and years. With tons of established climbing and the amount of rock with potential climbing is unheard of...it's makes Daddy's heart smile. Now, keep in mind, we don't visit Lander in the winter and we are usually there in the prime seasons. I'm sure there are days, weeks, months that feel miserable because of the blowing snow and icy temps but the rest of the year is pretty darn amazing.

Anyways, we were ecstatic to be back at "home!" We drove straight to Wild Iris to get in some routes before it was time for fireworks.

Axel found a sweet seat!

Lucas was excited, this boy grew up at the crag.

This is pretty normal for Daddy...stretching his forearms while starring at his route. :)

After a little rain and a few routes, we drove to Lander. To our surprise, the 4th of July celebration was in full force when we arrived.

We drove up to Steve and Ellen's just in time to take part in some firework fun.

I wish we would have been more prepared and purchased some goodies too. Then again, you can buy fireworks in WY any day of the week. Our friends shared too...THANK YOU!!

Smoke bombs were a favorite.

I wonder how long that will stay on the driveway?

We stuck to the normal climb one day and "rest" the next. It worked out great and maximized the climbing potential. Our rest days looked a lot like this...

Slip-n-slide! It was hot most of the time so water play was perfect.

This is what climbing days usually looked like..

Sam & Axel became good buddies all over again.

Lucas chatting with Daddy.

This is what dessert time looked like...

Smores time!! It was fun to share meals and desserts with our friends. This night was extra special with the sweet fire.

Mr. Steve and Anabel...happy girl she is! Looks like Daddy's a happy guy too!

This is what "rest days" looked like...

We did the traditional waterfall hike up Sinks Canyon.

It was hot but so beautiful.

It was so fun to see that the boys remembered how to hike!

Rest days ended in camping nights. This was perfect for us to get up early to climb while the boys slept in.

Ahhhh...so cute!

We made fun rock drawings in the dirt at the crag. This is our dancing skeleton and his skeleton dog.

Back in town...

Fire truck exploration!

We hit up the park a few times.

The International Climbers Festival was in full force which is always a great time.

Axel befriended an inch worm.

Daddy almost won the rope coiling contest!

Mommy participated in the Climbing Festival Dyno Comp. An old injury flare up to my right ring figure definitely limited what I could do but it was fun anyways.

Lucas and Axel were reunited with Timmy O'Neil who was the MC for the festival. THE BOYS LOVE TIMMY!! Who doesn't?? This guy is super loveable.

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Flash Back! Red River Gorge Rocktoberfest in October 2009.

Lucas was 4 years old when he first meet Timmy.

Yep, this is Axel when he first met Timmy at age 0. Check out those cheeks!!

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Horrible photo but very loved! More Timmy time!!

The whole fam enjoying the festival speaker night.

We did a lot of climbing and have hours of video to prove it. However, not many photos of Mom & Dad climbing. We did get some of the boys who really enjoyed finding boulder problems to work out.

Here's Lucas...

Here's Axel...

Lucas tried a super hard one and after a meltdown, got back on and did great. He learned that climbing is not always easy or obvious but can be tackled in small chunks. Okay...we hope he learned that. :)

They even roped up a few times. Here is Lucas...

Here is Axel...

Axel stopped mid climb to check out the pretty girl...too funny!!

This was the scene one evening at the crag. If you look closely, you can see Daddy (light blue shirt) hanging from a tree. We got a gaggle of friends to come out to climb so Daddy could get a few photos for his book. We had a great time and had the treat of watching Jonathan Siegrist climb a super hard route called Moonshine 5.14d which Wyoming's hardest climb. It was established by BJ Tilden a Lander local who was there to witness the send. Again, I have no photos but Daddy does. I was the videographer. Anyways, there was lots of cheering and celebrating after his successful go.

BJ congratulating Jon.

Happy day and so fun to see someone climb at such a high level, he's a strong kid!

Colby didn't forget to give Jon a little taste of the real stuff...his stashed jar of Moonshine is rough stuff!! He's not so strong when it comes to this kind of moonshine, who can blame him?!