Two 14er Climbs in one day! (Mt. Grays and Torreys)

July 20th and 21st, 2013: Mt. Gray's and Torrey's

Evan and I decided that we wanted to tackle a few more 14er climbs this summer.  It is going to take a long time to climb all 54!  We thought we would try to run up a 14er and found out that you can easily do 2 in one day.  Mt. Grays and Torrey summits are right next to each other with a saddle between that you can reach the next summit within about 30 minutes. We left Saturday afternoon after I finished work to camp over night at the base of Mt. Grays/Torrey and woke up early to start running/hiking up.  When we started putting up our tent we realized we did not have our tent poles so we had to improvise and use the bed of our truck to construct a comfortable place to sleep. Thank goodness it did not rain that night or else we would have slept in our truck. 

Beautiful view during the evening at our campsite

Ozzy and I looking up to Mt. Grays and Torreys

We summited Mt. Torreys first (we ended up hiking most of the climb vs. running but still made it up  in about 1.5 hours)

Panoramic view at the top of Mt. Torrey's (14,275 ft )

The view of Mt. Gray's from Mt. Torrey's 

The top of Mt. Gray's (14,278 ft ). We made it to the summit of Mt. Gray's from Mt. Torrey's in about 30 minutes

 We had a great morning hike and it was pretty amazing to reach the summit of two 14ers in one day.  We tried to run a lot of the way down. However, the mountain was so crowded that we had to stop to allow people to climb as we were descending.  We were both shocked to see so many hikers out. We estimated around 1,000 people climbing while we were out there and we had to see a couple hundred cars lined up along the road to the base for about a mile. We finished our hike/run in about 3.5 hours.

July 19th: Friday night date night!

We went to 2 breweries with food trucks by riding our cruiser bikes. We went to the Great Divide first and then Strange Brewing Co.

Silver King (Evan's race in Leadville)

July 13th, 2013: Silver Rush Mountain Bike...

Evan and Conor raced in the Silver Rush Mountain Bike (50 mile mountain bike race).  Teresa and I had a fun day of driving our truck up and down mountain jeep roads to watch Evan and Conor race.  We had delicious cheddar popcorn and Corona's to make the day more fun :) 

Mountain bike start

Evan at the halfway point

Conor at the halfway point

July 14th, 2013: Evan's Silver Rush 50 mile Run...

The next day Evan ran the same course for 50 miles.  He had a great race finishing 3rd overall in the Silver King (50 MTB + 50 run event). 

Run start

Beautiful morning walk to meet Evan at the 6 mile mark

To see Evan's race report go to http://evanmacfarlane.blogspot.com/2013/07/silver-rush-2-mtb.html

Twin Lakes Vacation!

After the Leadville marathon we had a few days to stay in Twin Lakes.  We had an amazing view in our cabin for a long weekend and some more adventures!

Aspen + Independence Pass (June 30th, 2013)

(Nancy climbing up Independence Pass)

Colorado Trail in Twin Lakes Hike (July 1st, 2013)

We did a 9 mile hike along the Colorado Trail. 

We found Evan!

Mt. Elbert Summit, July 2nd, 2013

Beginning of the hike

Mt. Elbert - highest peak in the Rocky Mountains of North America, at 14,440 feet

Nice work everyone!  We conquered Mt. Elbert at 14,440ft. Its not everyday you get to climb a 14er with your parents.  Evan and I are lucky kids!  We had a great time with everyone on this trip and it was such a memorable vacation!