For the next 4 weeks, I’ll be living in the high life of Colorado! Each summer, we try to get away for a few weeks out west, usually Colorado. We both love getting up in the Rockies camping, hiking, exploring, and more hiking. In just a couple of hours, we will be driving to Kansas …

This morning, we packed up the truck and said farewell to Colorado for the next couple of weeks. We are heading to Utah! Neither of us have ever been and his company has a plant in northern Utah. And if it has mountains, we should go. Once we cross the Mississippi River, finding high elevation …

Bright  and early, we got up and made coffee and steak+eggs for breakfast. Isn’t he cute in his reindeer pajamas? This is our campsite after we packed everything. This trail walks down to the stream that we could hear each night. We love the Aspen trees. Profesh packers, right here. I just hope we don’t …

On a very cold dark morning… We started climbing through snow, ice, creeks, and dry ground. Up to 10,000 ft. 11,000 ft. 12,00 ft. At 13,800 ft, I clocked out due to hypoxia. Stephen kept going to 14,200 ft. He reached the summit to Mt. Bierstadt! I don’t have those pictures since I was huddled …

This morning, we woke up to much better conditions. Bright sun and we were not freezing our fingers off. We had 2 objectives  today. We have to figure out which mountain to climb. This mostly depends on conditions of the trails. It would be either Mt. Bierstadt in Georgetown with a 7 mile round trip …

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. After Stephen …

Sunday After a quick breakfast on the road we started the drive towards the next camp site. For this trip we are alternating camping with condo. First round is camping in high elevation. That might be a bad idea…. Anyway breakfast with the best Paleo granola I have found. Steve’s Paleo Goods. And a citrus …

After 20 hours of driving, many stops for gas and coffee, plains, hills, storms, and roadkill, we finally made it back to Colorado. This is our 6th summer here and I hope the time passes SLOWLY. I need this big reset button and if there is a mountain, we must climb it. The drive in …

This campground has sites on the outer loop that are more secluded than those on the inner circle. They have more shade, as well. We were at site 9 and it had river access, too. Once again, we seemed to have a prime site. Matterhorn has bath houses with showers and flushable toilets which seemed …

This is our last full day in Telluride, so we needed to stretch our legs and get in a good climb.  This morning, we got an early start for a half day climb up to Ophir Pass. This is a 2,000ft climb to the elevation of 11,790. It is one of the easiest hikes in …

After we spent the morning in town, we drove up to Alta Lakes for some fishing and reading. I was deeply involved in a Nora Roberts book and the weather was perfect for some lake side sitting and reading. On the way up to the lakes, there is an abandoned mining village. Creepy, but I …

Finally, I got to see a Farmer’s Market in Telluride! The previous years, we stayed Sunday-Thursday and the market is on Friday. I was not going to miss this! This is one of the most progressive cities in the sustainable food movement. Eating local or regional is a non-negotiable to this small town. I knew …

This is the 4th year to Telluride and some of these pictures look familiar. This morning, I slept in and read by the breakfast fire while Stephen went fishing. After eating leftover soup and hot dogs, we decided to drive into town and get some ice cream. It was getting hot (for Colorado..so about 78*) …

We got up early and packed up quickly. It takes about an hour to break camp and pull out for the next stop. We drove out of Aspen and stopped for lunch at Whole Foods. I wanted a big salad and he wanted Sushi. We kept driving until we got to Montrose, which is the …

There are several campgrounds along the road to Maroon Bells and the National Forest access. We stayed in the Silver Queen Campground. When Stephen was looking for a camping spot, we wanted river access, shade, and elevation. Some campgrounds cram people in like sardines and we certainly didn’t want that, either. What we got, was …

You know there is a story behind that title. But first. After Stephen caught some trout, it was up to me to cook it. I love the taste of trout. I do not like the bones. I come from a very wonderful family of fishermen. My father, grandfather, father-in-law, and husband have always provided me …

The story goes that the man who first saw these peaks thought they looked like twin bells. When you get up close, the first one really does look like a handbell. Both peaks, Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak, are over 14,000 ft. However, as beautiful as they are, they are dangerous. Many hikers hoping …

Today, we took a long hike to the Colorado version of Crater Lake which is right at the base of the 2 Maroon Bells. Let’s just say it was “rocky” and leave it at that. Beautiful… ……but rocky. We met a lot of interesting people on the way up and down. We saw a lot …

The first night was cold, but I was dressed in a good base layer and the sleeping bag really was designed for cold extremes. I would have never believed a non-down filled bag could do that. My first thought when I stumbled out of the tent was coffee and chocolate. And hey, it’s vacation, so …

Maroon Bells is one of the most popular places in Colorado. There is even a claim that it is the most photographed area. When I first looked up the Bells, that certainly seemed to be the case. Since we got in late yesterday, we waited until today to go exploring at Maroon Lake which is …