I NEED A TIME MACHINE. HELLO — AMAZON?

So it looks like my last entry was earlier this year.  Again — I have no idea where the time has gone.  And the year is now officially half over.  Thanksgiving is around the corner.  Christmas is closing in.  Any way we can go back to say — maybe — March and give us a few more months this year?

Probably Not!

I have been fortunate enough to have hiked every Friday this year.  Sometimes we had to hike front range trails due to rain, mud, snow, wind or just sleeping in (never!), but for the most part, we have had some pretty darn good mountain hikes.  Here are a few pics from the first half of 2018:

February 16th — Teller Farms

Vickie and Dottie

Me and Vickie

February 23rd — The trails at Erie

“Spencer — please hold all our stuff.”

We didn’t tell Spencer we’d be hiking in snow.

Look! It’s a human coat rack!

March 2nd — Mt. Sanitas

At this point we were pretty much skating not hiking up the trail. It was a mix of ice and snow.

March 19th — Betasso

March 30th — North Table Mountain (we thought for a minute there that we were hiking a 14-er)

We made it to the top.

That wasn’t so hard!

Or not!

May 11th — Lion’s Gulch.  Again — we thought we might have made a wrong turn up a 14-er.

This was the “easy” part.

May 18th — Trail around the Boulder Reservoir

Selfie!

May 25th and June 8th — Ralph Price Reservoir

The most spectacular meadow.

Different view of the meadow.

Did someone say WATER!

View of the Ralph Price Reservoir from Professor Trail.

June 1st and June 15th — Flatirons North and South Vistas

Our beautiful foothills surrounded by trees.

June 29th — Mud Lake — Now one of my favorite top 10 hikes!

Caribou Ranch was closed so ……….

………. Hi Ho — Hi Ho — It’s off to Mud Lake we go ……….

We hiked through a beautiful field of Columbines.

We made it to Mud Lake and stopped for lunch on a log.

And finally — as I was hiking solo one day on the White Rock Trail, I realized that maybe I wasn’t hiking solo after all ………..

Well — Hello there big guy!

 

HOW ‘BOUT SOME CHEESE WITH THAT WHINE

Friday, February 21st Wandering Ju and I decided to snowshoe instead of hike.  Map Master was in Cat Island sending us photos like this …..

“Back in Paradise,” she says.

Here in the Colorado foothills we have our own Paradise — inches and inches of fresh snow.  We’re going snowshoeing!

When you don’t snowshoe on a regular basis (like Wandering Ju does), you forget the “hassles” involved in snowshoeing.  No problem.  I had everything lined up the night before:

Snowshoes — Check
Poles — Check (but I did forget to put my snow baskets on)
Gloves — Check
Ear muffs — Check
Parka — Check
Boots — Check
Snow pants — Check
Gaiters — Check
Thermals — Check
Lunch — Check
Water — Check
Chocolates — Check, check and check

Now, I’m not really much of a whiner.  My friends will attest to that!  So I’m not sure what happened this Friday morning.  Wandering Ju and I did make a wrong turn adding an additional 20 minutes to our drive.  No problem.  We just turned around, questioned the convenience store gal, and found the trailhead.  Life is good again!

But here’s where the whining begins.  For whatever reason — I was having a heck of a time with just about everything!

1.  I couldn’t remember how to Velcro my gaiters (whine), so decided I would be OK without them because the snow wasn’t that deep (mistake).

2.  I put on my jacket and backpack, and then decided to slip into my snowshoes.  As I bent over, everything in my backpack came flying forward (whine).  So I removed my backpack.

3.  For the life of me I could NOT get my bindings fitted (whine).  Wandering Ju (who was ready to go and waiting for me) helped.

4.  I had to find my gloves (whine), my poles (whine), and my ear muffs (whine).

5.  Then I remembered my backpack (whine), so I removed my gloves (whine), slipped on my backpack, and put my gloves back on (whine).

I was finally ready to go.  We snowshoed about 20 feet and realized that I did, indeed, need my gaiters (whine).  So we headed back to the car to retrieve them (whine).  I had to remove my gloves (whine) and backpack (whine) again, and figure out how the heck to Velcro my gaiters (whine) without removing my snowshoes (whine).

While I figured out the gaiter problem, Wandering Ju ate her lunch, updated her Facebook profile, cleaned out the backseat of her car, checked her emails, and made a few online banking transactions.  And that was just while I got the FIRST gaiter on (whine).

I was ready to snowshoe — AGAIN!  My #1 favorite past time is ….. anybody? ….. Hiking!  My second favorite past time WAS snowshoeing.  But now snowshoeing had moved from my #2 favorite past time to #19 — right behind getting a root canal (whine).

However — about five minutes into the trail, all that whining was history.

The beauty of the rolling terrain in the aspen, pine, fir and spruce trees …..

….. immediately brought snowshoeing back to my #2 fav.

Wandering Ju was happy to see my whining had stopped.

Thank goodness!

We never did find the marked trail.  Had it not been for other snowshoe tracks, there would have been no way of knowing where the trail was.  According to my map, we were supposed to start at trail 925A, meet at the intersection of 952B and 925F, then meet with 342A and possibly 926A, and follow 925F back to the trailhead.

I was getting hungry (no whining, honest), so I found a log on which to dine.

I look so happy — was I really whining that much?

YES!

We turned around and headed back the way we came.  We arrived at the trailhead and wouldn’t you know it — right there in front of us — the 925A trail marker!!!!  I think it was seriously about 10 feet from the car!!  We both snowshoed right past it.  (I was probably whining!)

Could it be marked any better?

But that’s OK!  We still had a great hike and a great day!  We were fine with the trail we hiked because …..

….. nobody likes a whiner!!!