Last pic from El Dorado Canyon - Rattlesnake Gulch

This last pic is just of the valley in the canyon way below. There is a river and folks go camping. Also, all the rock you saw everywhere in that first pic... Lots of rock climbers... You have to look for them, but you can find them. CRAZY!!

Railroad in the Canyon

There is a railroad up here - the train (AMTRAK) went by while we were hiking, but I couldn't take the picture fast enough. NEAT!! Can you imagine... these tracks have been here forever, and the train goes through at least 2 tunnels in the mountains. WOW! If you look closely, kind of in the middle and to the left, you can see where the tracks are.

Pretty Yellow Bird

Not sure how Shawn did it, but he spotted this pretty yellow bird on our way back. I am zoomed all the way in. So, cute!!! Are we in the tropics??

South Boulder Peak from Rattlesnake overlook

This is kind of a neat picture because this is the Peak we have climbed before, and now, we can look at it from a different perspective. Sure does look different...

Rattlesnack Gulch in El Dorado Canyon and SUN!!

We finally had our first hike with sun!!! The weather has been crazy and the timing of it has not worked out for our hikes. But yesterday worked out great. This hike was called Rattlesnake Gulch and it's in the El Dorado Canyon. This first picture is looking through the canyon back out to the city.

Different views - Same Area

Well, we couldn't do some other hikes we were planning due to the weather. So, we started up a familiar route to go to South Boulder again, but the weather struck and we had to turn back. BUT, we did go a different way back which was nice. Perspective is everything and we liked what we saw on this other route. That's about it. Enjoy!

Bergan Peak

You can't keep us off the trails... after a hike Sunday, then Thursday, now, Sunday again... we were off... This is called Bergan Peak - we went up ~9700'... in 9.76 miles (~2000' elevation gain) !! It was a really pretty hike.. lots of pine trees with pine cones... this was neat because the pine cones actually looked like ornaments on the pine tree. I've never seen that before! I tried to take a picture, but it was hard to tell. The one with all the people at the top, I took for my Mom. She always says, are there people around? Are you the only ones? So, there you go, Mom. Lots of people... :)!

Let the hiking begin!! - South Boulder Peak

Hi everybody! We just did 2 hikes this last week. One on Sunday and the same one on Thursday. My hubby wants to get 2 in a week, and I'm all for it. These pics are from South Boulder Peak. We did it on Sunday first. It was cloudy and we took our time, so these pictures are from Thursday evening. It was still beautiful. Then, we were challenged to speed it up and see if we could get it done in an evening - which we did. 6.23 miles in 4 hours and ~3,000' elevation gain. This is a great training hike for 14ers because of the elevation gain. If you want to know about it, check out this link: http://www.protrails.com/trail.php?trailID=77 We are hiking again tomorrow - stay tuned!!! P.S. The last picture is of Bear Peak. We'll be hiking that one soon, and when we get really good, we'll do Bear Peak and South Boulder on the same trip - hopefully, in 4 hours!