Colorado Hike {Personal}

This was our last complete family vacation before my sister gets

married. One of our main purposes was to hike up 

and reach the meadow at the top of one of the mountains our cabin 

was nestled between.

I had experience severe altitude sickness the day before and was

awake throughout the night feeling horrible. But the Lord blessed and

I was feeling perfectly fine by 3am.... Fine enough to complete and 

submit my college homework by 7am and then go on the hike without

even taking a nap before. I was amazed at how normal I felt during the

whole day, just after being sick and running on a few hours of sleep!

Healthy buckwheat pancakes for breakfast before our 7 mile hike up

the mountain. I think we made a little too much, though ;)

The back door, looking out our cabin. 

By the way, I can definitely recommend this cabin to anyone.

We've been there four times now and love it!

...and some healthy greens :)

Leaving our cozy cabin in the morning to head out on the hike.

This is just the road you have to walk up before you hit the trail.

Ahhh... can you tell who she's missing ;)

:)

The bark on this root is so smooth after being tread over by so many people

Somehow I can never get away without a "feet picture". It must be a girl thing, because I know a photographer who hikes in Yosemite a lot, and she always posts at least one of her feet ;)

Or, maybe that's just the only part of ourself we can easily take a picture of. :)

Staying on the blue trail... that leads to the meadow.

Yep, this is a full-length selfie. Now I feel accomplished! lol

This was also the time Alyssa and I were "waiting" on the rest of our family to catch up with us...

Ehh... they never came. So we started to go back down the trail and didn't see them, so we went back up to another trail that lead to the town overlook to see if they went there...

(town over look) :)

Finally, we decided that we should just go back down the mountain and see if they were at the cabin, because we sure hadn't seen them pass us on the trail while we were waiting.

We get to the cabin, and no luck. We assume that they won't come down the mountain until they find us, so we start back up road to hike the mountain again. Remember: this is a 7 mile hike, ha! :P

Thankfully, Ranelle met us on the road. They had met someone on the trail that we had met, who told them that we had been heading down the trail. 

Long story short, while Alyssa and I were waiting on the rest of the family, they accidentally vered off the trail and travelled 30 min in that direction until they came back to the original trail.

So Alyssa and I never made it to the beautiful meadow like the rest of our family, but I expect to go back some day... so that's okay :)

Then we had some deer in our back "mountain" (right behind our cabin) that I chased around with my camera... I was using my Lensbaby Edge 80 (80mm) lens, so that gives you an idea of how close I was to them.

"Well, hello there!"

deer-tracks

As I was heading back down the mountain after chasing the deer, I saw this beautiful view of the back of our cabin, so I went back to change lenses to capture it. Ahh... to be there again!

The cozy little room I stayed in.

And a more complete view of the front of the cabin.

Since, I've been here several times in my life, I have these wonderful childhood memories of it (I think the first time, I might have been 6). And this porch was one of my favorite things about the cabin. We all just loved the bed-swing :)

Also, this cabin brings back so many memories of my grandma who passed away about 3 years ago.

She came with us here one time :) 

-MarLeahJoy