Summertime Mountain Fun

If you look closely at our photo albums here, you'll notice that rarely does a week go by that we're not up in the mountains. In fact, we've logged 22 hikes since May, and most of them were with Jeremy. He knows the routine now and rarely gets grumpy in his carrier. He usually sings to us along the way. His favorite is downhill because it's bumpier. He hums along with each bounce and loves the attention he gets from all the hikers we pass.

We're usually a lot better about posting pictures on Picasa than writing on our blog, so be sure to check our pictures frequently. Plus there's way more pictures there than we can post on here. At any rate, we're way behind so this post will be a recap of some of the hikes we haven't blogged yet.

Back in July we stayed at our friends' (Lisa and Dan) cabin in Fairplay and hiked to Mohawk Lakes which is near Breckenridge. Here's Jeremy and Venessa at the upper lake, which is 12,138' above sea level - the highest either had been at the time.

Even though the hike was very crowed, the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. Besides fishing, that's one of the main reasons I hike.

Jeremy's traditional position after a hike:

Remember, you can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger version and see the rest of the pictures from the trip.

While Venessa and Jeremy were in Alabama for Mimi's funeral, I decided to seize the opportunity to do some backpacking. I headed to the James Peak Wilderness to hike into Heart Lake just below the continental divide. It rained on and off but the fishing was excellent.



I caught the biggest cutthroat trout of my life, the largest being 18". I also fished other lakes in the area, including Iceberg Lake which is 2 miles off trail and very secluded. I caught over 30 fish on the trip from 4 different lakes. That's what backpacking is all about, for me at least. (Press play to see the slideshow)


On Monday two days after the backpacking trip I drove/hiked up a 4x4 road to Loch Lomond and fished some high mountain lakes above it. I only caught a couple of smaller brook trout, but it was still beautiful.

From 8-17 Loch Lomond

The day before Jeremy's surgery was one of my days to stay home with him. Instead of sitting around we decided to drive to Rollins Pass on the continental divide. To get there we had to drive around to the west side and follow 14 miles of a bumpy dirt road, which Jeremy loved.

From there we hiked down to King Lake, and then over to Betty and Bob Lakes.

We didn't catch many fish but Jeremy was a great sport and absolutely adorable.

Four days later we all went to Herman Lake. There were no fish in the lake so Venessa didn't have to worry about me wanting to stay for "one more cast". The 7 mile hike to a lake at 12,000' was a great family outing. (Press play)

Last weekend we drove to Echo Lake near where Venessa did her half-marathon. From there we hiked up a valley to Chicago Lakes.

We used Venessa's nifty new GPS running watch that her dad got her for her birthday to measure and pace our hike. It turned out to be over 9.2 miles long, which we did at a blistering 3mph average. (Seriously, that's really fast for hauling a kid up 2000 vertical feet. In fact, we've only been passed one time in all our hikes this summer, and that was by a trail runner on Grays peak, compared to the hundreds of people we've passed.)



And much to Nessa's chagrin, I just had to hike down to the off-the-trail lower lake for "one more cast", but it netted me this pretty trout: