Thanksgiving Vacation Part 2

On Thanksgiving Day it was overcast in Boulder. We were hoping to wake up to some snow, but no luck here in town. So, we decided to try our luck and hopefully our snowshoes in the mountains. I picked out a trail west of Nederland and a village called Eldora. We started at the Hessie trailhead and hiked the Devil's Thumb Bypass Trail. Parts were very pretty and went along a creek. However, the trail was very, very icy. There was only a little bit of snow, so we didn't break out the snowshoes and we kept wishing we had YakTracks. We stopped for lunch and a couple totally flew by us unaffected by the snow because they had the rubber contraptions on their feet. It was getting late and we were moving slowly, so we turned around before hitting Devil's Lake and made a loop with the Devil's Thumb trail. The picturesque Hessie Falls were totally frozen and covered with snow. We'll have to go back sometime to see them in their glory. The whole hike was only about 6 miles. We then headed home for some good 'ole Thanksgiving hot dogs and mac & cheese. Yum!

Friday was supposed to be a rest day. So, we had a leisurely morning and hung around the house reading and stuff. Around lunchtime we headed out on our bikes to do some errands. We rode about 5 miles down to Neptune's to pick up some things (we got cool MicroSpikes--better than YakTracks!) Then Dan wanted Arby's for lunch (yuck). When we finally got home it was getting cold and we both made chocolate chip cookies.

We did wake up to a little snow on Saturday morning--just a dusting. It was very pretty, so I decided to go for a little run in our neighborhood. A little later in the morning we went out to Betasso and hiked the 3 mile loop in an hour. After running a few more errands we came home for lunch and then I promptly fell asleep for two hours. After Dan woke me up we hit the rock gym for a while. Dan's reading a book about training for climbing so we each did four laps on a 5.9 for a stamina test.

Sunday is our big CMC hike/snowshoe day. The trip Dan picked is supposed to be 10 miles with 3500 feet elevation gain--two summits (Mt. St. Vrain and Meadow). This should be interesting...