July 15, 2025

Happy Mason's birthday.  For his bday I saw the best sunset of the summer so far driving though Big Piney Wyoming. 

July 12, 2025

What a lovely chill weekend. Watched a movie and had pizza last night, got caramel apples with the girls today, and played Bananagrams with Kenz tonight.  Cam and Sadie crack me up as they snapped this pic while picking up pizza.

July 10, 2025

Noises in the middle of the night woke us up. We grabbed the bear spray and yelled out the tent. Turns out a deer can get the adrenaline going. Thank goodness it was “hooved”. 

Today was our last day and last pass. I ended up really liking Buckskin.  This pass was amazing and expansive just like the other passes.  I really liked the view of Snowmass. We had marmots and pikas cheering us on as we got closer to the pass.  It was a lovely and chill hiking approach (while still up of course) and again the views were amazing.  It was incredible to look around and again see mountains after mountains. I obviously can't put into words the beauty we saw because I keep using the same description.  Just trust me that this trail took us through some of the most beautiful views I've seen. 

The downhill back to the car felt so long. You cannot convince me to ever do the loop counter clockwise. Our way was definitely the way to do it. We came across the crowds that we had not had to deal with for 4 days so we hit the road and stopped at Underbelly Burger in Glenwood Springs for lunch.

This was a backpacking trip I will always remember. So amazing and so hard and so thankful I could do this with Darren. 

July 9, 2025

Tackled Trailrider Pass. Boy was it hard. Mostly the first half. Brutal up. Then we came to a lovely valley high a top a mountain with a nice (yet steep) trail to the pass - and it had flowers. Again beautiful views at the pass including alpine sunflowers. Snowmass lake was also beautiful. Reminded us of the Enchantments. Snowmass mountain was also cool. We headed down with columbines swaying in the breeze on the other side. It was a gently decline until bam - there was a super sketchy boulder crossing with a little snow that I almost freaked out in the middle of. Like really freak out. But I did it and I did not like it one little bit. We hung out at the lake for a bit soaking our feet and relaxing before hiking to our campsite. What amazes me is how different the mountains are as we move through this hike. And it’s funny how Darren’s favorite and my favorite are different. 

Spent the afternoon down at the meandering river - Darren fishing and me sitting on a rock watching the water go by. He said he caught the fish using one of my dad’s old lures. Sigh. I have been thinking of them all day and hope they saw what I saw because it was beautiful. And I’ll bet they helped me through that boulder pile. 

July 8, 2025

Today was a two pass day. We headed up to Maroon Pass and getting there was so lovely. The environment distracted us from the elevation gain. Not far from camp we came over a rise to a beautiful scene. Green rolling hills with red mountains plus flowers and the sound of running water and birds. It’s incredible (and hard). Cue the deer as he walks through the meadow.  Then the marmots came out to play. Sigh. Don't forget about the mountains surrounding you on every side.

Then it was an uphill push to the top of Maroon Pass. The views from the top were jaw dropping incredible. I loved it so much. Flowers and clouds and green and mountains upon mountains. This view will stay with me and it spoke to my soul. 

Making our way over to Frigid Air was beautiful as well. Flowers and views. There was even a large patch of alpine sunflowers.  The climb up to the pass was steep. Someone forgot to put switchbacks in. But it wasn’t too far and then we had another amazing view. It so cool when you have such different mountains on the two different sides and you can see it all. And I love me a tarn that I could see from our snack spot. 

Making our way down the pass was beautiful as well with more flowers and views. Then came the slog. 4 miles of kind of hot and down which my knees do not like. The last 4 miles were harder than the first four (mentally for sure). We just put our heads down and trekked to find a campsite.  We found one with less of a view than yesterday but the flower field we went through just before it was cool.  Some might even say "bananas". The columbines were so tall.  Thank goodness we had the afternoon to recover because our bodies were exhausted.  We ended up getting in the tent about 7:30 and were asleep before 9.

July 7, 2025

Happy my birthday! I’m excited for my birthday party on the Four Pass Loop. We stayed in Aspen last night and started out nice and early heading up West Maroon wading through streams along the way. This place is so beautiful and it’s only Day 1. We saw a few pikas who wished me a happy birthday. We made it to camp somewhat early (noon) and spent the afternoon and evening soaking in the gorgeous birthday views. Saw a camp site marmot and shared our spot with a deer. It was a bit cold for a minute so our birthday mountain house dinner was nice as it warmed us up. 

July 4, 2025

Things just feel not right right now. Our country is messed up, I just accepted a new job and will no longer be able to call myself a librarian, no celebrating the 4th with my parents, and just other stuff. 

At least I got to hang out with Kenz and Cam today and get some gelato.

July 2, 2025

Morning hike to Red Pine Lake for some mountain air. On Darren’s hike yesterday he saw a moose so he must have sent one to me for my hike as we saw one from the parking lot.