summer adventures

Here are some pictures of my summer adventures in the past week and a half. I completely forgot to take pictures at the 4th of July brunch, so you will just have to envision the general splendor and the mouth-watering aroma of blueberry french toast casserole & quiche.

First up, time spent with my aunt & uncle in Breckenridge. I invited myself to spend some time with them at their timeshare. We ended up doing a hike on the side of Mt. Quandary that leads up to Sapphire Lake Falls, which are in some of the pictures below.

Majestic Mt. Quandary

My aunt Linda & me on the trail

Sapphire Lake Falls!

Right before we left to head back down. Such beautiful falls!

The next adventure was a 14er. For those not Colorado or mountain savvy, a 14er is a mountain that is 14,000 feet or over. There are quite a few in the state of Colorado, and before this one I had done two: Mt. Yale & Mt. Columbia. Eva & I decided to shoot for a third one last Friday: Mt. Belford. We had high hopes of doing Mt. Oxford in the same trip, but we had a late start and didn't summit until early afternoon. Therefore, we just did Mt. Belford. We also stopped in Buena Vista on the way back at Bongo Billy's - what wonderful memories of going down there for a change of scenary from camp!

Eva crossed this standing up. I scooted across on my bum.

Start of killer switchbacks. My body was screaming, "You haven't done this since you were 20. What are you thinking!"

Eva made it to the summit block, took pictures, and then came back down to get me. So I guess she technically summited twice?

After much heavy breathing, pain, nausea and about giving up, I made it! Mt. Oxford is behind me. So close, yet so far away!

Eva & me at the summit. We snapped this shot quickly and then scrambled off the top because it was really windy.

Today's adventure took Nicole & me to North Cheyenne park. We hiked on the Seven Bridges Trail and promptly lost count of how many bridges we passed. We did see some pretty rapids, which managed to not make it into this picture. We also sat on a rock by the stream to eat lunch, which was fun! I'm so glad that Nicole & I can go do things like this during the week! Classic Nicole & Natasha moment: Nicole drove across town to see if I was home to get her cell phone out of my backpack. I was in the shower and had accidentally left the upstairs door unlocked. Nicole proceeds to bang really hard on the door, yell my name, and then come in and here the shower. She then stands outside again for a few minutes and comes back inside stomping around to try not to scare me. Needless to say, the phone was in the backpack and Nicole got it back!