50 year-old Floridians at 14,000+ ft

I had a fabulous 3-day weekend in the high country camping (RV style) and hiking with my parents. Drew stayed behind to work on Friday and climb a Flat Iron on Saturday, so I made the drive to Buena Vista Thursday night after work. It was an awesome sunset drive into the mountains, then I happily went to bed soon after arriving at the campground. We left the RV at 4:30am Friday morning to make the hour and a half drive to the trailhead for Quandary Peak. We started the hike at 6am, had a 30 minute detour (aka got lost), summitted at 10:30am, and got back to the car by 2pm. It was a tough hike, but my parents were troopers.

Luckily we were able to summit and start hiking back down before the noon storm rolled in. There was lightning and thunder all around us, but far enough away that we weren't in danger. We were very glad to be on our way down from the top at that point though. We did get rained on a little on the way down, but we were lucky enough to see a mountain goat!

The next day we took it easy. We drove around Buena Vista and hung out by the Arkansas River. We were driving along by the river, looked over, and saw 3 big horn sheep! They were standing next to the river, looked up at us for a minute, then decided to get the heck out of dodge. They trotted across the road and up the hill out of sight.

First a mountain goat on a 14er, then big horn sheep- we were livin' large at that point. After that we drove to an old mining town at the base of Mt. Princeton and Mt. Antero called St. Elmo. It was a very strange historic town with houses and buildings from the 1800's. Apparently there was a fire at some point...

That night we grilled hamburgers and talked about our good luck, then my Mom started planning another 14er for the next day. What?! The first one wasn't enough torture? They must be gluttons for punishment because my Dad didn't even put up a fight. We decided on Mt. Sherman. So Sunday morning we woke up at 5am, got to the trailhead and started hiking at 7am, reached the summit at 10:00, and made it back to the car by 12:30. Mt. Sherman was a lot easier than Quandry, and we had beautiful, perfect weather.

After the hike I drove home to Longmont and collapsed on the couch. Then Drew and I decided to have 'early birthday' and we gave each other our presents. Not a bad way to end a fantastic weekend.

Drew's fun fact: Mt. Sherman is the only 14er that has had a successful aircraft landing on its summit.

His & Hers Saturday

His:

Today Drew hiked Long's Peak with Hunter and Travis. Long's peak is the only 14er in Rocky Mountain National Park and one of the most well-known mountains in the Rockies. It is also one of the more difficult 14ers, but the boys smoked it. They started their hike at 2:00am, summitted in 6 1/2 hours, and made it back to the car within 12 hours. Thankfully, they also made it home safe and sound, and didn't even smell that bad.

Hers:

I am on call this weekend which means I have to be available to answer phone calls from our patients. I don't have to go in to work but I do have to stay within cell phone range. So instead of climbing a mountain, I painted. About a week ago when I was jogging with Bogey through our neighborhood I spotted a desk on the side of the road. I had been wanting to get a desk for an empty corner in our living room, so it was quite convenient that the universe happened to provide a free one for me. It had a very bad paint job so today I planned a makeover. Those who know me know that I usually tend to like blah, neutral things. Those who know Drew know that he tends to hate blah, neutral things. But since most of our furniture is blah and neutral, Drew and I actually agreed (doesn't happen much in our household when it comes to furnishing/decorating) that the desk should be painted red.

Before:

During:

After:

And then there's Bogey. Dogs aren't allowed in the backcountry of Rocky Mountain National Park so he didn't get to hike with the boys. Instead, he stayed home and did this all day:

Drew's fun fact: A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

Just for the Halibut

It's good to have friends in high places, but it's even better to have friends in Alaska. Two weeks ago Drew and I went on the vacation of a lifetime with our friends Ryan and Lisa to visit Jeremy and Kara. They moved to Alaska last year around the same time that Drew and I moved to Colorado. When we were home for Easter Ryan and Lisa mentioned that they were planning a trip to visit Jeremy and Kara this summer, so we decided to tag along.

Before it even started this was one of the best vacations ever for multiple reasons. The first was that I didn't have to do any planning. We already had a place to stay, a car to use, and lots of amazing excursions planned, all thanks to Jeremy, Kara, and the Rowland family. It is the best thing in the world to show up and have everything already taken care of. That hasn't happened since our honeymoon.

The other reason this vacation was awesome before it even started was the group of people. Drew and I are always missing our friends from home so we were really excited to get to spend a week with some of them. I already knew that the whole week would consist of Ryan and Drew acting like idiots, Jeremy giggling like a school girl, and the girls doing a lot of eye-rolling. I was not wrong.

Our flight arrived in Anchorage at 2:30am, an hour after Ryan and Lisa's landed. Jeremy and Kara had stayed up all night and killed time by going to see Harry Potter. They picked us up, we all went grocery shopping for our camping trip, drove through the night to Whittier, and arrived to a beautiful sunrise over the harbor.

There we met up with Raymond, Brenda, and their son Estevan to go fishing. We had a beautiful morning cruise through Prince William Sound where people come from all over the world to go glacier and whale watching.

Fortunately, I slept on the plane the night before, but I was the only one. Everyone else was operating on zero sleep at that point. But luckily that morning was filled with adrenaline to keep us awake because 30 minutes into our boat ride we saw a whale! At first we just saw a water-spout from far away,

but then it slowly moved closer and closer. It came up for air a couple of times so we got some great views of its hump and tail.

After a few minutes of no action we thought he was gone. Then he came up in front of the boat, did a mini breach move and sprayed the boat’s windshield with water. Really? Sprayed by a whale in Alaska? Yep.

After our real-life Shamu show was over it was time to get to work. We boated to this little island to set up camp and have a hot dog breakfast. Here's a picture of Raymond's boat and our view from camp:

Brenda and Raymond are serious fishermen, I mean fisher-people, and after breakfast they put us on some serious fish. We caught halibut,

silver salmon,

and a bunch of other fish I can't remember the names of. Estevan kindly demonstrated to us how to properly bash the fish on their heads after pulling them into the boat.

After fishing for many, many hours our perfect weather started to deteriorate. We finally headed to camp, snuggled into our sleeping bags, and went straight to sleep. It rained and rained all night with 60mph wind gusts. Luckily Jeremy and Kara had bought a new, heavy duty tent so we all were safe and warm. The next morning the rain and wind continued. We were camping on the beach of an island, and since the water was too stormy to cross in the boat, we were stranded. All 9 of us piled into the tent to wait out the storm. It might sound miserable to be stuck in a tent with a bunch of people for several hours, but it was actually really fun. We told silly stories, watched Drew and Ryan act like goofballs, and caught up on all the sleep we had missed the night before.

Finally, at around 4pm the weather subsided enough for us to make our escape. The storm chased us the whole way back. It was a very wet boat ride.

It took a couple hours to cross back over to Whittier, and when we arrived we were quite happy to be back on dry land and that much closer to coffee and hot showers. We made the 2 hour drive back to Palmer and crashed (into beds, not cars).

The next day we drove to Talkeetna which is a cute little touristy town where a lot of excursions to Mt. Mckinley are based out of. Our friends Beth and Joe, that are also from Palmer but live in Ft. Collins, have a cabin there. We all spent the day drinking Alaskan-brewed beer, checking out the little shops, and acting like obnoxious tourists. We even met some random SEC fans who out-did us on the obnoxious tourist part.

We had a great campfire at the cabin that night and even convinced the boys to jump in the river in their birthday suits. Yes we took pictures, no I will not post them.

Our driving tour of Alaska continued the next day to Denali National Park. Jeremy, Kara, Ryan, Lisa, Drew, and I all piled into Jeremy's pick up truck for the 180 mild drive. Needless to say there were plenty of shenanigans and beautiful scenery. The national park was cloudy that day so we couldn't see Mt. Mckinley, which was disappointing but I had already seen whales up close so I couldn't really complain. We hiked a little, saw some moose, and then headed back to Palmer. On the drive back the clouds cleared a bit and we were able to catch a glimpse of Mt. Mckinley.

The next day Jeremy took us to a couple of his local fishing spots and that night we had a little birthday party for Lisa's 29th birthday. We ate halibut that we had caught a few days earlier and had the best birthday carrot cake I've ever eaten. Ryan and Lisa flew home later that night, again at 2 in the morning.

Drew and I still had two more days after Ryan and Lisa left but Jeremy and Kara had to get back to work. They let us borrow a car so Drew and I went to check out a nearby glacier. We spent a couple hours exploring, going farther and farther up the glacier. It was very slippery and difficulty to maneuver without crampons, and I am clumsy to begin with. And you were surrounded by hard-packed ice so you knew if you fell it was going to hurt. Drew kept stopping to ask "are you sketched out?" I would answer "yes!" and then he would keep going. Typical.

The next day we slept in and then went to an old mining area called Hatcher pass. Then we packed up, went to Anchorage with Jeremy and Kara for dinner and a movie, and then to the airport. Like I said, vacation of a lifetime.

Drew's fun fact: The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London.

Finally...

The snow has melted, I wasn't on call for work, and we didn't have any plans already made. Finally, we were able to hike a 14er. If you would've told me last year that it was going to take me until the first week of August to hike a 14er I would've said you're crazy. But between an insanely high snowpack, traveling, and Drew's new addiction to climbing, it did take that long.

Today we hiked Mt Huron in the Sawatch range. Not only was it a great hike with awesome views and beautiful weather, we were lucky enough to hike it with some old friends. My friends from college, Steve and Caroline, just moved to Denver from Gainesville. When Drew and I arrived in CO last year the first thing our friends did was haul our butts up a 14er and it was an incredible introduction into what this state has to offer. We figured it was only fair to do the same to Steve and Caroline. They did awesome, especially given their lack of time to acclimatize (they only got to CO four days ago). We also hiked with another friend from college, Josh, who is staying in Colorado Springs for a few weeks doing some training before he moves to Uganda in the fall. Josh is always fun to have around, especially because he freely gives back rubs. Rounding out the group was Brett, my friend since preschool, who is the closest thing I know to a Colorado native because she's lived here for two years. Here's a picture of Brett experiencing Josh's generosity on the summit:

And let's not forget Bogey, the best hiker of them all. He probably hiked the equivalent of three 14ers today for all the running up and down the trail he does. I couldn't even get a good picture of him because he wouldn't stop moving long enough.

Here are a couple pictures of the view from the summit at 14,003 ft, and a group shot at the end of the hike.

Mt Huron was definitely my favorite 14er that I've done so far. It was #4 for me and #6 for Drew and Bogey. I hope to fit in at least a couple more before the summer is over...

Drew's fun fact: Hippo milk is pink.