Well, about 3 weeks ago on Memorial Day weekend, I moved into my apartment, which was pretty uneventful. Rather than spend the weekend unpacking, Brett and I decided to spend the weekend up in Estes Park again. We did some camping and hiking Saturday night through Monday morning. One of the hikes went up to Mills Lake where they took the picture for the Colorado state quarter. I had one of those quarters for about 6 months before I moved here, so I recognized it right away (it later fell victim to being used as Light Rail fare). The scenery at Mills Lake was spectacular, but unfortunately, we forgot our cameras, so I don't have any pictures. After hiking Sunday, we drove up to Trail Ridge Road, which crosses the continental divide and is the highest continuous paved road in the U.S. We took a hike near the top, and made it up to 12,300ft elevation. It was awesome! On Memorial Day, we headed down to try to go to the top of Mt. Evans, but the road was closed, so we made our way over to the Guanella Pass, which was also closed. Despite being closed, we took the road for a few miles, and I got to see my first bighorn sheep. Again, it would have been nice to have a camera, but maybe next time.
The next weekend was dedicated entirely to fly fishing. The first weekend in June was free fishing weekend, so Brett and I fished the S. Boulder Creek on Saturday and the S. Platte River on Sunday. We both got skunked on Saturday because the water was flowing way too fast, but Sunday Brett caught two rainbow trout, while I caught none (the score: 0 - 2). I was glad he caught something though because it was his first time fly fishing, and everybody deserves to catch something their first time. So I was outfished that weekend, but the scenery in both locations made the trip completely worthwhile.
Last weekend, we continued the tradition of spending every other weekend in Estes Park. This time, it was more focused on the Rocky Mountain Brewfest, which brought 15 different microbreweries to Estes Park for Saturday. We did some fishing Saturday morning before the festival started, and I was able to catch a nice rainbow on my second cast (the score: 1- 2). After that, we went and sampled lots of beer. There was everything from vanilla porter to rasberry ale to chili beer to espresso stout. It was awesome!!! We made some new friends at the festival, which was pretty cool. One of the guys went to college at Bradley, which is in my home town. I was overly excited about that. They seemed like cool people, and later we had a campfire at one of their grandparent's houses in the mountains (who also went to Bradley). Sunday morning, Brett and I managed to get up at a reasonable time and head up to Sprague Lake in RMNP to do some more fishing. It took awhile, but I finally caught a nice brooke trout on an ant (the score: 2-2). The lake was overcrowded and hard to fly fish, so we made our way down to a stream in a valley near the Moraine Park campground. We didn't catch anything there, so we went on a hike and then headed back to civilization.
I'm very excited about today. Brett and I are going over near Aspen to climb our first 14er (that's a 14,000ft elevation mountain). We took a class on Wednesday at REI that told us all we needed to know, so on a whim, we decided to attempt one this weekend. It's name is Mt. Huron, and it's not supposed be too strenous. It's a 5 mile hike round trip, but you spend the entire trip to the top doing some pretty good uphill, not to mention the fact that there is no oxygen. It's a bit of a drive, but I'm looking forward to setting a new elevation record on my altimeter. After work, I'm heading home, and then to REI to pick up my new snowshoes. I'm so excited. I also bought a new laptop from Dell today, so my sporatic blogging will come to an end once I receive it. I'm definitely taking my camera this time, so I should be able to post some pictures the next time I blog.
Catch you later,
Ryan
