Finally trying out our new tent

We finally had the chance to try our new tent last weekend. Our trip didn't quite go as planned, but we still had beautiful weather and a great time.

We attempted to hike a few different places, but there's still too much snow and ice to get to a lot of the peaks we want to climb. We made it to the argentine peak trailhead and noticed that someone was stuck on the ice still on the road. This was the second vehicle we had seen stuck on ice (in mid June!!) so we decided to take it easy and explore some of the old buildings and mines around. Here's a photo of one of the cabins we got to explore. They definitely had a million dollar view from this little shack back in the day!

Estes Cone

Estes Cone was really the beginning of our obsession with the outdoors in Colorado (or it was for me at least).  If I'm remembering correctly, we drove up to Estes Park and stopped at a Safeway to grab some trail snacks.  There we found a book of hiking trails that we bought, and we were soon on our way.

I remember really liking the book because it detailed the elevation gains of the hike and how to know where you were on the trail.

This was our first experience hiking "above the tree line," and there were some amazing views from the top.

Chief Hosa Trail-Our First Colorado Hike- July 4, 2012

Chief Hosa Trail could have been the beginning of the end of my hiking career in Colorado.  We always joke about how hot, miserable, and unpleasant the whole experience was.

Brad had been there a few years back, and it was beautiful (according to him), with a creek flowing the whole way through and abundant fish and wildlife on the trip.  For us, it was quite different.  Colorado was in a serious drought when we first moved here (there were even several wildfires burning throughout the state), and the trail had seen the effects of this drought.

There was a creek bed, but no creek.  The fish were either dead in the dry creek bed or floating in tiny pools of water that were too small for even one fish, let alone the 15 or 20 who were trying to survive in about a cup of water.

Needless to say, I wasn't an avid hiker at this point anyway, so I was done with hiking after this trip.  It was hot and unpleasant all day, and I had already made up my mind that this wasn't for me!

Of course, if you know me at all, you know that isn't the case these days.  Thankfully, Brad convinced me to try a different trail soon after, and our love affair with hiking began soon after.

Here are some shots from our first hike at Chief Hosa.  You can tell that most of the shots from the end of the trail overlooking the mountain look cloudy.  That's from the wildfires nearby.

Colorado Anniversary

It's hard to believe it's already been a year since we moved out to the beautiful state of Colorado!  The journey has definitely had its ups and downs, but I can say with confidence that we feel so blessed and we're so thankful to be here everyday. 

Brad and I have been meaning to start a blog for some time now to post some of our awesome photos and tell about some of the crazy things we've done and experienced.  The purpose is two-fold actually.  We want to share these events with family and friends, but we also find ourselves trying to remember when and where some of our stories happened over the past year.  We have done and seen so much that, frankly, it's hard to keep it all straight!

That being said, I hope you all enjoy seeing our adventures.  We have some catching up to do, so much of this will be from the past for now, but we will try to keep up with the blog moving forward.

Here are a few photos from our one year anniverary hike at Square Top Mountain.

~Denyse