Last week, Colorado's Rocky Mountains were calling our names, and we went! Our good friends Justin and Sam were getting married, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to celebrate the official start of their married lives. It was a beautiful few days of friendship, laughter, and mountain tops.
We flew out Wednesday afternoon to Denver, and finally made it to our place in Dillon around 5. After checking out our beautiful AirBnB, we freshened up for the festivities that evening. We headed to Timberline Craft Kitchen for dinner, drinks, and conversation with other wedding guests and the almost bride and groom. You could tell how thankful Justin and Sam were that so many people headed out west to celebrate them.
Thursday was wedding day, but not till later that afternoon. So to kill time in the morning we headed into Breckenridge, making a pit stop at Sapphire Point (where we took family pictures with Eric's family two years ago) for a beautiful photo op.
Then we headed to town and did a little souvenir shopping and bar hopping. We ate lunch at a yummy little burger place, and I got to relive some of my favorite rolled ice cream from when Eric and I were in Breckenridge with his family. (I may or may not have gotten said rolled ice cream every day we went in to Breckenridge....but that's not an important detail.)
We got all dolled up for the rest of the festivities that day and made our way to the Dillon Marina Park Pavillion. This was the prettiest spot for a wedding I've ever been to, with the most picture perfect mountains in the background just beyond the lake. It was a lot warmer than I was expecting, so I did a little sweating in my long sleeved dress, but I do have to say that I was thankful for the sleeves that evening- the night still got pretty dang cold!
After everyone was choked up from the heartfelt ceremony (thanks to their officiant/Justin's brother in law Curt Frost, and Sam's friend Debbie), we enjoyed the scenery with yummy snacks and drinks. Before we knew it we were being sent off to their reception sight, which I swear was pulled straight from a magazine.
The next morning we all enjoyed sleeping in until we woke up. We grabbed ate breakfast and packed up a backpack full of water for a nature hike! There were a few options thrown around as to which hike to take, but I think I can safely say that everyone was glad we went with a 3 mile hike instead of an 8 mile hike ha!
We did the Meadow Loop and Ridge Trail, which is clocking in at 3.2 miles long. All Trails says you gain 475 feet of elevation on the trail, and I'm pretty positive that all 475 feet of that is done in the first 100 feet of the trail. The climb up from the parking lot was steep. Some brave souls took the shortcut up, which was literally a straight climb up to the top of the hill, but I opted for the switch back trail that made it to the top, and my lungs still felt like they were going to give out on me.
Luckily the rest of the trail was relatively easy, and it provided us with some beautiful look out points for pictures.
After the hike it was back to the house for lunch and naps. We travelled back in to Breckenridge to ride the gondola, and were presently surprised at the area at the Peak 8 stop. Once we got off the gondola there, we found a huge area with mini golf, a roller coaster, an alpine slide, food, drinks, and more. We were kind of bummed that when we were here with Eric's family a few years ago we didn't know about this place- it was so cool! We all enjoyed a trip down the alpine slide before heading back down on the gondola to get dinner.
Saturday morning we rented two jeeps and headed off to the countryside to do some trails. We started out on Georgia Pass, which was totally off-road, through creeks, over rocks, and up a mountain. The view from the top of the trail was just beautiful, and we crossed the continental divide on this route.
After soaking in those views, we made our way back down the mountain to civilization and headed towards the Boreas Pass. On the way we soaked up the sights of rural Colorado, the most exciting being real cowboys moving cows down the side of the road. I'm sure they thought we were crazy city people stopping to watch them, but I just wanted to tell them that our kids just really love cows ha!
The Boreas Pass was beautiful, and the beginning of the trail was a little hard on my nerves as we drove up the side of a mountain with no guardrails and a huge drop to the bottom, but after that initial climb the trail was easy peasy. The trail overall was relatively uneventful, and it was heavily trafficked. We crossed the continental divide again on this trail, and this time we found a sign and took a picture by it.
But after that trail, I think that most of us were craving something more "off-road". We headed to the last trail we would be able to do for the day, and I'm not going to lie, when we started out I was very disappointed. We went right past all the ski lifts and ski trails, and nothing seemed that exciting. I remember Kenny, who was driving the jeep Eric and I were in, saying that he wished we were doing something more like the first trail, with the rocky roads and exciting drive. Not even 5 minutes later we hit the rocks.
We were still in the the trees, so it was hard to tell how high up we were, but the road very quickly turned from a dirt road to a rock road that was pretty narrow. This is an up and back trail, so we did run into vehicles coming back down the trail as we were headed up, and I'm not going to lie, it was a little intimidating as the roads were narrow and the rocks were loose. We commented multiple times about how we could feel the rocks moving under the tires.
The trees cleared and we were reeeeeeally high up the mountain. But we weren't away from the rocks. The trees had provided a nice barrier next to the trail, but towards the top it was wide open, and the trail was a tight switch back with all those loose rocks I mentioned earlier. Meeting vehicles on this portion of the trail made me feel like I wanted to throw up. I spent a lot of time going up this part of the trail with my hand holding tightly to the jeep and my face pointed towards the floor. I was very relieved when we reached a stopping point with some room to spread out a bit.
The view here was quite breathtaking. We ended up close to 13,000 feet above sea level, and we could have went even a little bit higher, but we had to have the jeeps back by five that afternoon so we needed to head back down the mountain to turn in the jeeps. It was probably a good idea that we headed down when we did, because as we went back down it started to rain on us, and wet, loose, rocks under your tires on the edge of a mountain doesn't sound fun.
That night we took it easy and ordered some pizza and enjoyed our last night soaking up the views and soaking in the hot tub.
Sunday morning we left bright and early to get back to Denver to catch our flight home. We could have used a few more days in the mountains, but home was calling us and we were definitely ready to see Brady and Ashley again. We are looking forward to our next adventure!
