Our hotel was in Mountain Village, which was even higher up at 9,500 ft. This is about the same altitude as Quito, Ecuador! A place I am most familiar with :) Here is a view of Mountain Village from the gondola
We spent most of the first day acclimating to the new altitude. Kyle didn't feel so well so we took it easy.
The second day we took an easy, mostly flat hike down to the base of Bridal Veil Falls.
Our friends let us borrow their hiking backpack and Camelbak water things. These were awesome.
In the afternoon we went on another longer hike, about 2 hours, and enjoyed the aspen trees, wild flowers, great scenery, and tried to avoid bears which seemed to be out in full force during our trip. We saw a bear ourselves the second day and heard of many other bear sightings. They will be headed to hibernation soon so I guess they're out to eat well before the long sleep
That little town (Mountain Village) was our hiking destination....here we go....through the aspens....
and as we neared the end of our journey we faced these scary afternoon rain clouds.....
A little worried about being exposed on open trails with thunder (and possibly lighting) looming in the distance. I was practically running to our Mountain Village destination.
The next day we went fly fishing which I will recap in a different post but that was really fun. I enjoyed it more than I thought and we both caught lots of fishies.
The morning of the last day we went on this trail that most of the locals like to hike, bike, run....
We knew this was an intermediate trail so we were prepared for a little work and we saved it until we had been there for a few days so we wouldn't kill ourselves but it was still pretty difficult. It took about 2.5 hours to do a 2.7 mile loop up a mountain then back down. Yikes! My legs and butt were feeling this big time! Kyle and I were noting that everyone and their dog (literally) were passing us. I think we got passed by 6 or 7 people/couples/dogs. Nice.
Parts of this trail were just solid loose rocks. We couldn't believe the people that were "jogging" on this trail without totally wiping out. Plus the uphill was killer. Kyle and I were huffing and puffing like old people. Then we saw a woman mountain biker. Kyle and I looked at eachother very confused...how did that woman even get up here? with a bike? We took lots of breaks to enjoy the scenery/catch our breath.
When we made it to the top this was our view
Notice all the ski runs! It's hard to tell in this picture but I was terrified because Kyle went over to the edge of those rocks by his feet to look down
That looks like a complete death drop and I was practically on my hands and knees trying to climb away from it, begging Kyle to step away from the edge! I'm usually not such a freak about such things but I think my fear of heights has gotten worse in my old age. The mountains were so huge all around us that I felt so powerless and small right there on the edge of the cliff like any small breeze could just whisk us over...ugh....my head hurts just thinking about it. So we moved on...
....and I took pictures of the aspen trees with the sun poking through
Overall, Telluride was a nice break from Texas in August but it certainly is an extreme sports sort of place. The mountains are just so steep that even mountain biking/hiking is intense here. And I'm sure the skiing is just as or even more intense. Since I'm not an extreme sports sort of lady I don't know that it would be my first choice for skiing but I would come back in the summer to enjoy the charming town of Telluride and the beautiful scenery.
And, most importantly, thanks so much to Mimi and Popeye for taking care of the kids while we enjoyed the mountains. John and Anna are little busy bodies and we greatly appreciate having parents that live nearby and are graciously willing to take over the full-time parenting gig for a few days so Kyle and I could take a break. We are so blessed by the selfless giving of your time! John and Anna enjoyed playing play-dough with Popeye, building towers, reading books, going to the mall playcastle, and their big Sweet Tomatoes adventure (a John-requested outing marked by double helpings of mac n cheese and TWO ice cream cones). Thank you!!!
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