Saturday Sights

Craft beer, live music, mountains. That's my answer when I'm, regularly, asked why Andy and I moved to Colorado. The order of importance changes depending on the day I'm asked, but the top three has stayed the same since 2011. We both are super grateful that our three reasons for moving across the country have only gotten better in Colorado over the past years we've been out here. Well, ok, so the mountains don't really change in just three short years, but our appreciation for them has improved with each visit. I mean, come on:

On Saturday, Andy, Shelly, and I packed up my Passat and drove the hour and a half or so to Estes Park, one of the entrances to Rocky Mountain National Park. The Rockies get really snow-covered starting in October, so a mid-January hike was out of the question and snowshoes were the footwear du jour.

 Shelly and me, standing on a lake.

Come on up, guys! I swear it's not too steep!

The lake Shelly and I were standing on in a previous picture, from above now, hence the slight climb.

 

 

Andy's response when asked if he wanted to keep going in the piercingly cold wind.

These people do not care about the potentially unsafe ice.

We hiked from Bear Lake, to Nymph Lake, to Dream Lake and stopped just shy of Emerald Lake, the final destination on that trail. I did the whole hike back in October 2011 when my high school/college friend moved out to Denver and the mountains were calling our names. The trails and lakes look sooooo different in October vs. January! For starters, you can actually see the trails and lakes. Saturday, the three of us agreed to come back in the summer to finish the hike fully when we wouldn't be battling packed snow and ice. Though, it's hard to predict what the mountains are going to be doing any time of the year.

Bear Lake

 

Nymph Lake

Dream Lake

Seriously guys, it was really slippery...

...and snowy...

...and beautiful.

-Breanna