we spent another day of hiking in the rocky mountains! we went to REI last night after dinner and found a pretty cool book on hiking trails on the front range. so of course W was very excited to try one out this weekend. we woke up bright and early (well, not really, we both kinda snoozed) and headed off toward evergreen. what should've only taken about an hour took us nearly 2 because of weird directions from our GPS. we ended up back tracking and taking the route the book said to take. finally we found the trailhead for the chief mountain trail and we were on our way. it was a short hike, just 3 miles round trip. but it went up pretty high. we started at about 10,600 feet and steadily climed up to 11,709 feet. that's 1100 feet in 1.5 miles! the views of the surrounding mountains and arapaho national forest were quite breath-taking (altho it was about 65 degrees at the bottom of the mountain, and by the time we reached the summit around 10:30 or so, the wind was picking up and it got kinda chilly). there were so many parents with their babies (you know, in those crazy baby holder hiking contraptions), and a bunch of dogs on the trail. it makes me want to get a dog. maybe someday we'll live in the mountains and get a bernese mountain dog and a husky. :)

here are some pictures...



here are the rest of the pics