Saturday's hike

I haven't been able to blog lately...we welcomed 160 new students last week for orientation, so I spent the week in Winter Park, leading teambuilding and all sorts of activities. It was great, and we have a terrific new class, but I was worn out! So, I took Saturday off and headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park--one of the most beautiful spots in all of the U.S., I think. I started out at the Glacier Gorge trailhead and headed up to Sky Pond. The first mile was crowded with dozens of people--it was a "free entrance" day at the Park. However, after the first mile, the travelers dropped off, and it was just a beautiful hike. This first picture is the falls from the trail down below.

This is a picture of Loch Lake--you can see that there is still snow in the backcountry--even in August!

This particular trail is not for the faint of heart...

Luckily, there were some people going up ahead of me. I say luckily, because it is really hard to take a picture of yourself climbing! This is the trail, we had to scramble up these rocks to the falls, but the view from above was spectacular!

I made the entire 10 miles in 5 hours and 10 minutes--pretty good for altitude and the fact that I had to take cover from lightening and hail for a short time, and then I had to take a break on the way down, to put away all of my rain gear!

Oh and one last bit of exciting news (two bits, actually). The Marvelous Macy started kindergarten last week AND she lost her first tooth. The girl is pretty excited about her missing teeth!