Thursday, July 17, 2008

Enter at Own Risk...

The day after the 4th of July we all decided to go for a hike because I had been dying to go hiking ever since we got up to Estes Park (this is Allison obviously...Will didn't hike with us..he played golf)...so we took a family trip plus Christine to find a hiking trail.
I found this easy/moderate hike to Gem Lake that was supposed to have a really nice view of Estes Park and only supposed to be 4 miles round trip.
First of all, we had trouble finding the trailhead, and when we found the road we thought it was down this is the sign we saw!

Here's dad with the sign...



Real friendly people live in the mountains apparently...here is all of us starting out on our first trail (not the one we planned to hike) until it thundered and we turned around to find another trail...



Here are Robin and Christine modeling by the sign at the start of our trail...we eventually found the Gem Lake trail, although it hadn't really stopped thundering we weren't as out in the open as before (the weather is kind of unpredictable out here...storms pop up out of the blue like at the beach)...we're pretty sure whoever measured the length of this trail was a LIAR!



Our trail, neverending, was completely uphill all the way...we never thought we would make it to this lake...Robin, Christine, and Mom were pretty determined by the end, while Dad and I contemplated going back down because we were so tired of going uphill! Here are some pictures...









The beautiful Gem Lake...which was incredibly small! We're pretty sure we got even with the tree line on our way up...which is pretty high in altitude, considering we started at around 8,000 feet!





One last view from the top as we descend down...a very quick trip to the bottom and a lot of relief when we finally hit the bottom!



We did more on the trip and went to Vegas this past weekend...but I think we've put up enough pictures right now...more to come!

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