Pawnee Pass

In early July my mom and I got to go hiking up near Brainard Lake.  Cal generously took a Friday off work to watch the boys and we headed out bright and early.  The plan was to hike up to Pawnee Pass.  It was gorgeous!  I couldn't get enough of it.  (that's apparent in the ridiculous number of pictures...)

This was the view from Brainard when we got up there.  See the moon on the left?

The wildflowers were unbelievable.  I think we hit the peak time for flowers, there were TONS everywhere!!  They were beautiful.

Columbines:  Colorado's state flower.

There were also tons of little cascading streams everywhere.

I'm never good at remembering which mountain is which, but the pointy one on the left is Navajo Peak.  I think.

Lake Isabel

The lighting was so cool here!

Flowers, flowers everywhere!

I love the huge clumps of bluebells.

I kept stopping to take pictures.  My mom was patient because my dad does the same thing.

Looking down on Lake Isabel

Another high little lake in the next valley.

It was about here we started to wonder about the building storm clouds.  It's very common to get rain in the Rocky Mountains in the afternoon.  Usually if you are headed down by 1 or 2 you are okay.  We figured we had time to get to the top of the pass and start down before it hit.

Looking back

Um, do you think that storm is going to come this way??

This is Pawnee Pass, where we were headed.  You can see a few groups on the trail.  We made it a little higher than the top group, then it started to sprinkle.  We kept going, knowing we weren't far from the top, and it was only 11.  It only took a few minutes before it really started coming down and we knew we needed to turn around.  So we packed up the camera in plastic bags, threw our rain jackets on and headed down.  

The clouds moved in quickly and soon we couldn't see the pass.  The rain POURED, and then hailed.  It was just small hail, but it really hurt.  It wasn't just falling, it was coming down hard and felt like you were getting shot with a bb gun.  And it was cold.  The trail turned into a stream.  Then the thunder and lightening started.  It was all around us and close and we were so exposed way above tree line.  So we and all the other surprised people up there booked it down as fast as we could.  It rained hard the whole time.  We were so completely soaked and so cold!!  When we made it back to the car, we had a really hard time undoing our pack buckles and taking our soggy boots off because our hands were numb.  This picture doesn't do the rain justice.  It was really coming down.  I thought I was going to lose my shorts.  They are stretchy and a little big and just soaked up the water and stretched and sagged.  We were quite a site.

Even though we didn't make it all the way to the pass and got stuck in a crazy storm, it was so so fun and so worth it!  It was crazy beautiful and felt so good to get out on a "real" hike.  A part of me will always be in the mountains.



The 4th

A lot of fireworks shows were cancelled here because of all the forest fires, but we were able to still go to the show in Erie like we usually do.  They do fireworks on the 3rd, which is kind of nice.  We met our friends the Westers and the Andersons there and Pete came with us.  We enjoyed some play time while we waited.  The boys played frisbee and loved it.

I didn't take any fireworks pictures, but they were fun.  Austin liked to say, "Boom!  Boom!"

On the 4th we went hiking up in Eldorado Canyon.  We planned to meet my parents up there, but we were the last car they let in and they were a few cars behind us.  We went to the Eldorado Springs pool afterwards, so we just met them there after our hike.  We hiked up the Fowler trail a little bit.  The boys were both tired and a bit grouchy from being up so late for fireworks the night before, so it's good we didn't plan on anything big. 

Checking out some climbers.

It was a HOT day, so we were excited to go to the pool.  The Eldorado pool is about 100 years old and the water is always kind of cold, but it is a neat atmosphere.  It is definately a different crowd than our neighborhood pool.  :)  Zach went off the diving board for the first time.  He was a bit nervous at first, but did it and wanted to go again and again.

Austin wanted to go off too, but I couldn't get him to let go of my hands.  I finally kind of threw him in to Cal.  He thought it was fun.

A poolside picnic.

That evening after naps and some down time, we went to my parents' house for a bbq.  The boys played in the water some more and Cal made us some yummy homemade strawberry ice cream.

It was a busy but fun few days!



Nymph Lake & Dream Lake

The next morning we hurried and packed up and ate breakfast then headed out to do some hiking.  The road to Bear Lake (where we were planning on starting our hike) is under construction and you have to take a shuttle up there from 9am-4pm, but you can drive up other times.  We were able to get past the stopping spot before 9, but were told the lot was already full and had to take the shuttle anyway, but from an upper parking lot.  Long story but we ended up having to wait for quite awhile.  But we made it and hiked first to Nymph Lake and then on to Dream Lake.  It was pretty warm, even up there and there were a lot of people, but we had a great time.  The boys did really well.  Austin hiked for quite a ways, and I carried him some in the backpack.  Zach was a trooper and I was so proud of him!  They were tired by the end, but not bad.  We went 2.2 miles, which is a long ways on little legs. 

It was beautiful, even though it was a bit hazy from various forest fires.

Nymph Lake.  It was covered with lily pads.

We bribed the boys with "power pellets" aka M&M's.  It worked nicely.  :)  

Zach checking out neat roots from an old tree that had fallen over.

Zach just cruising on ahead.

Dream Lake.  We made it!  It is nestled up in this valley with a big rocky mountain over it (I don't know which one).  Lovely.  Of course, where there is water, there is rock throwing.  We ate a few snacks next to the lake and watched fish swim by. 

Zach has a great smile, but has a hard time smiling on command, so this is what we get.  Funny boy.  But on a side note, you can see here where he has lost his first 2 teeth (front bottom), and the new ones are coming in.  He is on the young side to have lost teeth, but that's okay.  Crazy though.

The usual afternoon storm clouds were just starting to move in, so we didn't stay long and made a surprisingly quick descent back to Bear Lake.  I could seriously hardly keep up with the boys on the way down.

On the way down, Zach climbed up on this rock next to the trail, put his hands on his hips, and said, "Oh Mom!  It's just SO beautiful up here!  Look at this view!" 

That's my boy.

We feel lucky to live so close to somewhere so pretty.  We got a National Parks pass this year, so we'd better take advantage more!  Such a fun trip.