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This weekend was amazing!
I went with Nate over to Winter Park to visit a few of my fabulous aunts and cousins. On someone's camera, there's a great photo of me and Bodi, the youngest and oldest cousins, with a 23 year age difference. Some moments, life seems pretty amazing.
Electa, my other tiny, ball of engery cousin was also a barrel of fun! She actually managed to get Heidi, Karla, Nate, and me to play Go Fish for TWO hours and that was in addition to two games of Candyland and one of Hi Ho Cherry-O. Luckily the rest of the time was spent taking a stroll around Cristl's neighborhood and lounging. With a light snow swirling outside, mostly trees and mountains as neighbors, and the toasty log house - it was a very calming and peaceful vacation.
After a weekend of feasting on homemade quiche and some rockin' spinich dip, we had to check out of the amazing hotel room that my aunt Cristl got for us and head even further Southwest towards our destination mountain: La Plata, the 5th heighest in Colorado and 6th in the continental US.
With ice and 3 inches of snow on our approach to the base, we realized that was the least of our worries when at the top, the snow was knee deep in some areas. I can now understand how the inuit have more than 5 different words for snow (they may have even more) and I'm sure I encountered almost all of them on this trip. If the 5 hour ascent wasn't brutal enough, the way down was even worse and my legs are screaming at me today! Terrified of sliding down this snowy mountain with boulders burried under the snow like landmines, Nate takes me across this traverse where the grade is so steep he has to kick step footholds into the ice-snow for us to walk in... After that adventurous experience, I took the lead and wound us down the actual hiking path till I discovered my own interpretation of Nate's Boot Skiing and just slid down using my butt as a sled.
After the adrenaline carried me down the mountain, the rest was smooth sailing back to the car. Overall, it was about 10 hours of hiking and then Nate was brave enough to then tackle the 3 hour drive back to Fort Collins.
Just writing and re-visiting the experience is making me exhausted so I'll end here and wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!
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