Snowdrift Peak

I learned how to climb in the summer, usually in late July or early August, with two of my climbing buddies, Mike and Jack. They're almost one entity, MikeandJack. Dad met the two on a hike, and as we got more experience and began climbing harder and more remote peaks, we started to plan out our trips together.
Jack, an English professor who writes historical novels, now lives in Estes Park and Mike comes back for a month.
Even when I moved here, and Dad had a baby and stopped hiking, and I began chasing the 14ers, I met with them for a few hikes every summer.
It finally slowed, but never stopped, even when I had kids. It did slow to almost a crawl, once a year, and last year the twins were born and I didn't go at all.
Friday, at 2:30 a.m., I left my house to do another hike with MikeandJack (and Paul, a retired doctor who lives in Estes Park).
We climbed Snowdrift Peak, a mountain that gets climbed maybe 10 times a year in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a long, hard, epic day, and today my body is yelling at me at times.
But it was worth it.
Why?
Here are the photos.

New Album 7/19/08 10:18 AM

Rocky Mountain High

One of the popular sayings of grandparents is you get to enjoy them, and then you can hand them off when they get hungry, tired or poopy.
Not my Mom. By necessity, she's been in the front lines with us. She stayed with us for more than a month when the twins were born, and she did everything, even the occasional midnight feeding. She had to.
That's why I was excited about her visit this weekend. It was another set of experienced arms to help us with the twins.
She let us go out to eat Friday, by ourselves, which just doesn't happen anymore, and when we came back, she said, "I don't know how you do it." And she had the help of her husband too.
Every time she's out here, I really don't know how we do it alone. It was still chaotic. It was less chaotic but still chaotic.
So I wanted to show Mom what I love about Colorado. She's been to the mountains many times, but she's never been out here in the fall, when the aspen change. That's one of my favorite parts of Colorado.



The leaves were really pretty this year, even offering up some red, a rare sight among the aspen gold.








Mom feeding a twin in the car at Rocky Mountain National Park




We ate at a pizza place that reminded me of 1980s pizza joints, with old-style arcade games in the back and good sausage pizza.





"Papa Pat" does a good job of keeping the girls entertained.