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Steamboat Springs

andiintheskyy
Sep 19, 2016
2 min read

Saturday was an adventure. We woke up at 1:30am after a three hour nap, and were on the road to Steamboat Springs by 2am. It was just under a 3.5 hour drive to the location we had set our eyes on; Gilpin Lake. If you have never been, I highly recommend going! We pulled into the trail head parking lot just before the sun started to rise, PERFECT timing. It's always a little chillier than expected, since in the mountains compared to the city, which is a wonderful way to wake up after a mesmerizing drive. After all the exploring we hiked just under 12 miles and were out in the beautiful fresh mountain air for about 9 hours. We saw TONS of wild life including; birds of all sorts, a fox, (an owl, which I was pretty positive was an owl, but it was dark... don't mark my words though, it looked EXACTLY like an owl... my spirit animal!) There was a cub and momma bear on the trail that almost caught sight of us (another spirit animal!), chipmunks, moles, rodents of all sorts. SO MUCH BEAUTY. We happened to go on this adventure right during peak season so all of the leaves are changing, I don't know how it could have gotten any better than this. After this long and beautiful day, my body was feeling sore, but refreshed and better than ever.

I personally find fall time to be my favorite time of year to hike, so many animals preparing themselves for winter, a bit of a cool breeze, and colors like crazy. Pure happiness and amazement are the emotions I felt all day. It was challenging and a LOT of climbing. We estimated that we were about 10,500ft up (or that's what snapchat told us anyway). I could definitely feel the altitude and the crisp cold air of winter telling us he's on his way. The ultimate part of this type of hike is how incredibly in the moment you must become, how one with nature you must become, and how much you must trust your body to continue to take the next step, as well as hold your balance. I am excited to take full advantage of the fall weather to prepare myself for winter hiking! So much more exploring to be done in this beautiful state! I hope you all had an amazing weekend- here are some photos from the trip!