Solo Hike to The Cross

I went on my first solo hike the other day... it was so peaceful and cold! :)

I did the Red Mountain Trail, which is a safe gravel roadway... so I didn't need to worry about getting myself into a tough situation. We had done it as a family and knew what to expect. I did not expect the higher I got the icier and whiter the trail would get. The fall colors here are amazing, in a very different way than amazing Kansas fall colors. My camera just doesn't bring it out... I made it up to the cross in 1 hour 15 minutes, and I was pretty proud of myself! 

Goalie

My little man got his first chance to play goalie... he had 4 great stops, and maybe a few got by him. ;) But we won't talk about that....that's a high pressure position!

Here's a picture after their last home game... one more game and we can hang up the cleats until Spring. So far the weather has been COLD, but it could have been worse, so we are happy we've had the weather cooperate!

Niemann's Pumpkin Patch

It's a sad day when you are excited to find a fun pumpkin patch and quickly realize your kids are starting to get a little big for that kind of fun.... we made the best of it, and there were some fun activities to get them excited. It's hard having these two grow up so quickly.

The darn sun was in the way for this one...

Pumpkin Basketball was fun... thankfully the weather was amazing!

Not as awesome as climbing a mountain, but my boys were great sports!

Reece is a natural "Tigger"... he just destroyed Riley in the gunny sack race. 

The boys really enjoyed launching pumpkins... sadly we didn't have too many that actually splattered.

Aspen

We ventured up to Aspen on Saturday... we got a little fall and winter all rolled into one. The Aspen trees bring tourist from all over. They turn an amazing golden color... I love their leaves too. Up close they look like golden medallions. We tried going up to the Maroon Bells, but thanks to the government shutdown, no vehicles could get up there. We were allowed to park and walk that way, but we made it a couple of miles. This was our "hike" of the week.... more like a walk, but hey, it was some activity. And it was some nice, crisp, fresh air. The boys had fun with the snow too.... Aspen is quite a bit higher than Glenwood and they get much colder and much more snow. You can tell the ski slopes are getting very close to opening.

You can see ONE Maroon Bell in the distance... 

It was funny seeing Aspen not with no snow on them, then you see the pines covered.

It's hard to see, but there is a pine tree growing out of the side of the mountain and then growing up. 

Golden Aspen

"Keep that thing away from me!"

Amazing packing snow!!

Storm King Fourteen

Jake and I had Wednesday off and decided to conquer the "Storm King" trail. We had attempted it with Jake's parents and the boys when we first moved here, but it was hot, we got a late start and only made it to a lookout point, before we turned around. I'm proud to say we made it and then some...

It's a sad trail to hike. There are little memorials along the way with personal items left about. As you get closer to the actual area where most of the Hotshots lost their lives, and realize how close they were to escaping, it's even more tragic. You'll never know if they knew how close they were or if the fire turned on them too quickly.  Reece will study this more in 5th grade and get to do the hike with his class.

Before you find the individual memorials, you see these trees with several shirts and hats hanging on them... it's a little eerie.

We didn't know which way to go when we came to the memorials.... do we turn around and retract where we came or do we follow the footsteps that looked like it just circled around to the beginning.... we chose the loop and chose wrong. It took us a long a rougher path that apparently was the path the Hotshots took, and it was kept clear just as part of the memorial. I did see this charred tree and it looked so cool... way more cool than this picture shows.

This doesn't look that bad in the picture, but Jake and I had to scale down this steep rock.... this was the end of our hike and by the time we got to this point, it was too late to turn around. We were committed. But those trees up top are very much small and in the distance.

A view from the very bottom of where we came down from. We survived with nothing more than a splinter or two.  Next time we will NOT go this route, but we got an adventure in!