Independence Pass Weekend

We woke up Saturday morning to open the curtains, look outside, and see that snow had fallen on the local mountains.  SNOW!!!!  What a great way to start a weekend road trip to Aspen and Independence Pass to see the fall leaves and colours.  Our goals were to explore our state, see the big mountains, and try to do so without spending any extra money.

(Note - now that I'm living in the USA, I may start having to spell 'colors' instead... but for now I'm going to keep the 'u' because I know my Dad would like it better that way.)

Anyway, Rachel woke up at 5:15am and it still took us until 8am to leave the house.  We didn't even need any particular gear for this weekend but it seems to take us an incredible amount of time to pack up food and extra layers.  Maybe other families who don't eat as much or aren't afraid of getting cold don't take as long to pack up.  We'll have to work on getting out the door faster for ski days.

The pictures for this weekend can be found here

So, we started driving south from Boulder to Golden and it started snowing!  Yipee!! I (Meggan) drove up to Summit County to practice driving I-70 in the snow while we had extra time and the highway was not busy.  We learned that it only takes 90 min or so to get to the Summit area, which was less than we thought and made us excited about ski days.  We drove to Copper Mountain Village to play in the snow.  The snow blowers were on as the mountains in this state all race to try and claim first opening day.  Wolf Creek won this year, by the way, after a recent 3 foot dumping of snow.  We expect some mountains locally (well, if we can call the Summit area local) to open Oct 21st.

Rachel walks at lunch in full pink

Rachel was not old enough last year to interact with the snow.  This year, she decided to pick some up and see what it felt like.  She picked it up, shook it around, and then cried (we assume this was because it was cold and she refuses to keep gloves on her hands.)  Then she repeated this whole process several times.  Take a look:  VIDEO

We drove onward through Vail and stopped at a rest area to enjoy our picnic lunch.  Rachel tried to get peanut butter all over the car, tried to spoon feed herself beans, and then had a dance party in the front seat.
VIDEOS:

Through Glenwood Springs and south we headed to Aspen.  Aspen had far less snow than the Summit County mountains, and generally seemed a bit shut down for shoulder season.  We went for a nice walk through the river parkway, including a John Denver memorial, and past a lovely bench with the inscription:
"Cairns guiding us along life's journey".  This made us really excited, since we had a cairn as our wedding altar and a theme for us has been about cairns guiding us through our various stages and adventures.  We played in the park with Rachel and had fun with the slide.

We left Aspen and drove up Independence Pass, heading east toward Leadville.  This highway is narrow and windy and will be closed for the winter season shortly.  Rachel slept through the gorgeous mountain peaks.  At the summit of 12,095, we got out quickly to enjoy the view and then headed down toward Twin Lakes.  This area is full of '14ers', including Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive.  We arrived at our $65 cabin in time to cook a spaghetti dinner and play before an early bedtime.  Rachel slept soundly from 7:30pm until 6am, which was a huge treat, especially considering she was in her travel crib.

Breakfast in our cute cabin

MOJO puffy jackets at Mt. Princeton / Buena Vista CO

Sunday morning we warmed up our frosty car, checked out and headed south to Buena Vista.  Jason used to do rafting trips there while working at the BOEC, so he showed me around.  The '14ers' of Mt. Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, and Yale were in sight and towered majestically over the flat ranch valley.  We checked out some old favorite camping spots of Jason's, and then turned back north toward Leadville.

We had hoped to find a fun run or hike to do in Leadville - the highest city in CO.  Jason will one day run the Leadville 100miler running race there, I'm sure.  However, Leadville was... well... ugly.  And cold.  And pretty snowy.  It's a has-been mining town with nothing to really offer, so we drove through and landed in Frisco.  We went for a 3 mile run near Lake Dillon and dreamed about owning a cabin in the area some day.  We were pretty happy that we survived a run at 9000ft and then had a picnic at a playground.  Our friend (Jason's old roomate) Angela joined us for a visit, and then we drove home to Boulder.