"Everything is fine! Bills bills bills!" -Ally, who was subsequently requoted numerous times
We had one heck of a weekend! Friday night drove up to the Long's Peak trailhead and slept in the back of the Prius. Woke up at a reasonable hour and made coffee and oatmeal in the parking lot. Set a 3 hour turnaround time for ourselves to get up to Lamb's Slide and back down, so we hauled up the trail, booted (me, nervously) about 2/3 of the way up Lamb's Slide, and made fun spring corn turns down. Although I was pretty scared on the way up (it's been a while since I've booted anything steep), once I had the skis on and made a few turns, my confidence came back and it felt SO GOOD to make 45 degree jump turns. Huge boost to work through the nerves.
Back at the car in 6 hrs 10 minutes, then cruised down to Boulder, picked up Dill, and headed to the South Mesa TH loaded with ice water and lots of snacks. We started hiking the Skyline Traverse at 1:30 PM, and slowly accelerated the pace up and over South Boulder and Bear (which were both COVERED in some gnarly swarms of annoying gnats). We then cruised over to Green in the late afternoon sun, enjoying the wildflowers and views of the IPW. By the time we were going down Flagstaff the sun was setting, and we quickly refilled our water bladders and had a quick snack at Eben G Fine Park before heading up and over Settler's Pass. It was full-on dark by the time we got to the bottom of the Sanitas trail, but we made our way up to the top by headlight, losing and re-finding the trail and chatting loudly to scare off mountain lions. After some excitement around 10 at night, we ended at the Mindens, tired but happy and accomplished!!! Good work Dill!!!! Sweet Cow for dinner has never tasted better.
On Sunday, we got out climbing with Anne and Chris for Puppy Paige's 3rd birthday! Had a lovely time, as we always do with those two, climbing in the canyon. Paige crushed the tyrol over Boulder Creek-- even puppies have bday challenges! We got home fully spent and with no yaya's left...the best kind of weekend!
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
