An Image of You and of Me and We're Laughing and Loving It All

So, one of my big goals this year was to get a lot of good hiking in this summer. I used to be all into it, but once the girls were born it was kind of hard to really get out there and get some good climbs in. We take them on little 3-mile nature hikes now and they do ok, but with their little legs they're not exactly ready to take on any big peaks. My wife works with a lady who used to climb fourteeners regularly with her husband, but they kinda fell out of it in the last couple of years due to a lack of climbing partners and just overall burnout. So when they heard that we were looking to get back into the groove, they offered to have their daughter watch the girls and we began to plan our summer outings.

This past weekend was the first of our hikes this year, and we started out on a moderate climb, the Twin Sisters just adjacent to Rocky Mounatin National Park. This mountain is so named by its two prominant peaks and has an elevation of 11,428 feet.


The first part of the 7.4 mile roundtrip is a steady climb through a trail in the woods. This part is fairly gradual, with several switchbacks along the way.

Here we are finally out of the woods and above the treeline. You can see row after row of the smaller foothills going out into the horizon. That's the town of Estes Park down below.

Above the treeline, it was pretty much rock scrabble all of the rest of the way. There was still a decent trail to follow so we had to do minimal scrambling. As you can see, even though it is called "Twin" Sisters, there are several smaller peaks in between the two major ones. So it's actually a whole gaggle of sisters, a "Little Women" of mountains, if you will.

Getting closer... We really lucked out with some fabulous weather. We had to get up at the very crack of dawn so we could summit and get down before the afternoon weather started rolling in. It was well worth it. Besides a few straggling clouds the sky was clear blue. Check out those snow-capped peaks in the background. Simply amazing and, honestly, the pictures don't do that view justice. Awe-inspiring, for sure.

We made it! Well, most of us anyway. I'm still lagging behind playing around with the camera. Oddly, there was a woman sitting crosslegged on top when we got there. I tried to ask her what was the meaning of life but she told me to buy a dictionary. Go figure.

Here is a view of Mount Meeker (the shorter of the two) and the fourteener, Long's Peak. Our tentative goal is to summit Long's by the end of summer, but we'll see. I've heard it's a pretty tough one, but I can see it from my house and have stared at it since I moved here over 10 years ago and have wanted to conquer it. Check back in late August to see if make good on that one or not.

Once we got to the top we took a break and had a snack. Then a marmot came who was also interested in eating my lunch.

Get away you oversized squirrel!!! This guy was a monster, seriously. He was really agressive, too. Apparently he had a taste for cheese & crackers and trail mix. We eventually had to scare him off with a hiking pole, though if he did manage to take my lunch I would be wearing a marmot-skinned hat on my next trip...

A shot of the other twin sister. I don't know if that's Mary-Kate or Ashley. I can never tell them apart.

Hey, I was up there once. After we got back down, the dark clouds started rolling in. We met a lot of people going up as we were coming down. I sure hope they didn't get caught in a storm. The weather was still great when we got back to town. We had a bbq to celebrate the day, and then we went home to shower and groan about our sore muscles the rest of the night (and most likely the next few days after).

I know I've said it a bajillion times, but life in Colorado is good. Man, I love summer.