7/23/11

It's SATURDAY!!! Time to hike! We headed into the Rocky Mountains for a strenuous 7.4 mile hike climbing almost 2500 feet in elevation landing us at around 11,500 ft elevation!!! My the air was thin! The worst thing about the hike was that the path was very rocky and difficult. It wasn't just a dirt path you could easily follow, it was intense and treacherous.

We got some good family photos along the way.
Maybe one of them will be our Christmas card :)
And the best photos once we reached the top. The top of the mountain was narrow and pure rock. The trail was called twin sisters because we climbed to the top of a mountain that had two heads.
Mom and dad.

In this picture you can see my lying at the top of one peak and Nelson (a tiny speck in the distance) on the top of the other peak.
We spent some time relaxing at the top and then headed out so that we could make it down in time for some dinner. Overall the entire hike took us around 5 hours, which was much faster than a lot of other hikers we saw...although we also saw two actually running the trail! I would have surely gotten a sprained ankle if I had tried to run that trail.
More pictures at the top.
The descent, you can see how rocky and steep the trail is.
At the top again. The pictures are a little jumbled up.
This is the view of one peak from the other peak. You can once again see Nelson the tiny speck if you look really closely. He is just to the right of the divet in the middle of the mountain.
We were EXHAUSTED after the long hike and super thirsty even though we brought two water bottles each! We were also starving, as we had just had sandwiches and chips on the hike up.
We went to Estes Park to search for some food in the Rocky Mountains! We found a place called Big Horn restaurant. My dad got an elk burger, it has a gamier taste and the meat is tougher. Megan and my mom got buffalo burgers, which basically taste the same as cow. It was a wonderful day, and we were thankful that the next day wasn't going to be nearly as intense!