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Monday’s Misadventures

Monday June 9
It’s a good thing we have a nifty cold weather sleeping bag. When we finally dragged ourselves out of the tent 2 hours after sunrise, we found ice everywhere. I slept like a pampered princess with no peas involved so I was shocked I didn’t wake up to frozen toes.

imageAfter Stephen brought me hot coffee and built the fire, we fixed a quick breakfast and went exploring. Check out our home for 4 more days.

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Behind the campsite, there is a creek full of snowmelt so we don’t need the "river" app for sleeping white noise. However, the peaceful river doesn’t drown out hikers being stalked by ravenous wolves or jackals. Those were the only 2 things we could come up with for that mysterious mayhem at 11pm.

This is Echo Lake at the base of Mt. Evans.

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And this is Stephen dreaming of trout in Echo Lake.
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After Echo Lake, we drove up to Guanella Pass to see how the trail to Mt Bierstadt looks. We are going to attempt to summit Bierstadt or Evans. We will check out Evans tomorrow then climb one of these Wednesday. Unless the wolves or jackals pick us tonight.

The rest of the afternoon was a fiasco. We needed dry ice, water, and a towel. Here’s the story: the campsite info said there would be well water for cooking and cleaning. But the well was all dried up. We needed to fill our containers. We finally found the well pump at another campground and raised the dead in a 5 mile radius with the squeak of that thing. Then we drove into Idaho Springs for more wood and dry ice and a towel. The Safeway had wood and regular ice. The nice lady at the store to drive 10 miles to this.

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They had a towel but no dry ice. We decided to go with regular and grabbed the cheapest towel and get back to camp.
But a few miles past the 20 minute wait on I-70 for BLASTING, Stephen realized he forgot to get a day fishing license. Out here, you can lose your truck and spend a few days in the slammer for fishing without a permit. Rumors abound that the ranger who catches such a criminal gets to tattoo his badge number on said criminals buttocks. Stephen isn’t taking chances. So we sat in the parking lot of a gas station with the phone at the exact angle to get a signal so he could buy a permit online and screen save the confirmation number.

Then when the hot toddies took effect, we had a fantastic dinner in which nobody was set on fire, fell off a cliff, or maimed by mountain goats. Winning…we’re doing it right.
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