View from Twin Lakes, Colorado
Just on the other side of Independence Pass
We ended up staying at The Little Nell, a beautiful resort right at the base of the mountain. If it was winter we could have skied right up to our room! We actually got a great deal since we showed up pretty late. We realized how nice of a place we were staying at when the Concierge walked over to the restaurant he recommended to us just to bring back Kiana's pacifier! She must have dropped it on the floor in the lobby. The restaurant was a few blocks away from the resort, so I guess it was a good thing that we didn't decide to go somewhere else!
Kiana got her own crib, but until we got settled for the night she was enjoying the big bed. Can you see her, she's waving at you!
Sunday morning we had planned to go on a hike. We were told that you could hike up to the top of Aspen Mountain and take the Gondola down. If you don't know, hiking down a mountain is very hard and rough on your feet and knees, and you're more likely to slide on the gravel and fall! So making it up to the top was always my plan, allowing us to hitch a free ride down! We'll, we were told by a friend that "everyone in Aspen does it," and most people said it should take about 2 hours. A two hour hike up to the top didn't seem to bad to me. I used to hike up ski slopes in ski boots carrying my skies when I raced in high school, and Grant just went on a six hour hike up a mountain with his SORT team, so we didn't think it could be that bad. Boy were we wrong!!!!
First of all, this was STRAIGHT UP the mountain! Secondly, those that say "everyone in Aspen does it" have never done it themselves. And they forgot to mention that, everyone in Aspen looks like and probably does hike up the mountain every other day! These people were intensely in shape, and probably twenty to thirty years older then us! They were telling us that it takes them about 1.5 hours to get to the top. Since they were going double our speed as they passed us, we knew from the beginning that our two hour hike was definitely an underestimation! Also, we had Kiana strapped to us, so as the crazy mountain hikers passed us by they must have thought we were crazy! That or they underestimated us, because almost everyone we asked how far it was tried to get us to turn around and go back!
I had Kiana for about the first 30 minutes, then Grant took over. He carried her most of the way until we got to apparently the steepest part of the hike. This is when she decided to have a meltdown, so mommy had to take over! At this point we were already two hours into the hike! It was to the point where I was taking baby steps up the mountain because I was so tired, but didn't want to stop. I was feeding Kiana a banana as we were hiking just to get her to stop crying! Apparently it's only about 1/8 of the trip distance, but it took us about 1/3 of the time to get past it. Once we got mostly through the steep part, people were encouraging us to keep going! We made it that far they all seem to say the rest was easy! WHATEVER, I don't remember ANY "easy" parts! By the time we got to the top of the steep part I was basically done hiking, but now we had gone too far to turn back. Thank goodness Kiana's melt down had stopped and she was in a good mood again, because I was ready for it to be Grant's turn carrying her again!
Here we are at the top of the steep part! It's been about 2.5 hours up at this point, but unfortunately we still can't see the top! See the town at the base, that's where we started! Grant and I were expecting it to be cold at the top, so as you can see were a little over dressed. I bet the top was around 65 degrees. So, the extra weight and layers of clothes didn't help either!
Here you can see the road that goes up the mountain, another path to choose from. The way we went was about 1.5 miles straight up a path, we could have followed the road, which is more of a gradual incline, but it is about 5 miles up. It didn't seem too gradual or that much easier since your still going up, so we figured we might as well take the shorter route. At least now we can see the gondola again, and it doesn't seem as far above our heads, so we know we must be getting closer!
Finally 3.5 hours later we made it to the top! So much for a 2 hour hike! At this point I was glad we brought extra water and food for Kiana! She's worn out too, can you tell!
My free ride back down now! I had never seen a more beautiful sight then this!
Until of course we actually got to the true top and took a look at the other side of the mountain! It was absolutely beautiful, and worth the hike!
Sitting back and enjoying the ride down! The bottom looks so far away! I can't believe we actually made it to the top! I don't know that I have ever done anything that intense before, even Grant said this mountain was a lot steeper and harder then the one he climbed a few weeks ago! The total increase in elevation was about 3,300 feet from the base to the top!
All the Aspens in the area were so beautiful, it makes me want to go back in a week when they have all changed color!
More views of the area!
We left Aspen after our crazy hike and headed to Denver for the night. I was looking forward to taking Kiana to the Aquarium the next day! She seemed to love watching all the fish when we went to the zoo so we thought this would be entertaining for her.
If your whole body can fit into the helmet, you might be a little too small for the outfit!
Below are a bunch of pictures we took while at the Aquarium!
Watch out for the Flash Flood!
You may not be able to see in the picture very well, but there were about five giant sea turtles swimming above us! She wanted to lay on her back to watch them.
Help Mommy! We're in the fish tank!
Just swimming with the fishes!
Some of the tanks you could look over and see inside. These were Kiana's favorite tanks, she was acting like she wanted to jump in and swim with them!
The aquarium even had Mermaids!
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