Day 5 and 6: Hiking in the rockies

The rising sun on the peak outside of the living room window was almost as beautiful as the setting sun.

Being the good tourists we are, we stopped at the Welcome Center in downtown Breckenridge with the pups in tow. We picked up several flyers for all sorts of things and chatted with a lady about good hiking routes for beginners still acclimating to the elevation. She suggested we hike one of the ski slopes (Peak 8 I believe) and gave us directions to a trail head.

After that we did a little shopping and a little sight seeing, downtown Breckenridge is really pretty. There's a beautiful little stream that runs through it and every now and again, there are bridges that go across it. You could really just sit on a bench and while away the day, people watching and enjoying the mountain views. I made Steven pose in front of a really cute area that had a gorgeous view. He's a good sport.

I could get used to views like that.

After getting back to the house and having a bit of lunch, we took the dogs on a wild goose chase trying to find the fabled trail head we were told about. After about an hour of driving in circles and getting rather irritated we gave up and parked at a ski lift to walk up the neighboring service road. We discovered the trail head and headed up the peak. Woohoo! Success.

This was a good way to work into hiking because the terrain wasn't terribly technical and the slopes were mild. However it was hard to get a good photo with ski lifts all over the place! (The geek in me loved those too.) I did manage to get a couple decent photos of the days adventures.

We also used this hike to introduce packs to the dogs. They did so well!

We cut this hike pretty short because Steven's knee was yelling at him. On the way back to the house we decided to explore a little and found a street called Boreas Pass Road, sounds promising, no? It went up and up and up. At one of the pull offs we snapped a few pics.

That night was pretty low key - we made plans for a hike the next day!

Day 6 was our first real hike in the mountains. We found a website that called the Mohawk Lakes one of the most beautiful sights in Breckenridge, and it was only a moderately hard hike to get there. The subaru was really in it's element here.

We started on the Spruce Creek Trail which then forked to the different lakes or falls.

We set off around 11:30 am with Rhea and Gunnar in packs again and Masi eagerly hunting squirrels. Doggy family portrait:

About a quarter of the way there we found a clearing and I started snapping photos.

What are Gunnar and Masi staring at you ask? Our little buddy:

The Clarks Nutcrackers. We had to look them up after the hike. They are in the crow family, were very inquisitive and followed us part of the way up the trail. "Hi!":

Out of curiosity, Steven started holding his hand out (as if he had food) and calling the birds. The following happened (enjoy the facial expressions).

Friggin cool, eh?

So after a bit of playing with the birds we kept going. It was easy for a while, even with all the roots and steep hills but then we started getting into some real rocky mountain hiking. We passed a couple old miners cabins, I was amazed that they were still standing. At the beginning of the tricky stuff, we came upon a waterfall and decided to take a break. I snapped some photos:

We had a little food:

I wanted a group shot but realized I had forgotten my remote so... I set my timer and then scrambled up the rocks in the 10 seconds before the picture is taken. Talk about winded.

On we went, every time we climbed up to another plateau we thought for sure the lakes were just over the next ledge. This went on for a while. We eventually caught up to some other hikers from San Diego and used this chance to have someone else take our photo instead of using the stupid timer again.

We are sitting on an old mining wench. They must have used this to lower or raise the mined ore. It's amazing to think they hauled this timber and the big wheel up here!

We could practically hear the placid lake, we were so close, on we went. Up and over the next ledge. This time, we were right. There it was.

The lake was about a foot deep, maybe, and ice cold. The dogs love it. Somehow there were trout in it.

This was the mountain scape I was looking for. This is what I wanted to see.

The dogs really looked like they were in their element.

Steven was using his nifty little phone again to find out how high we were. This was a little under 12,000 ft.

We didn't hang around too long, we had already been hiking for 2.5 hours. On the way back down we snapped a photo of the plateau where the lake was. The cluster of trees in front of the rock face..that's where the lake was.

That night we ate Mexican at Mi Casa and questioned our server, Travis, for ideas on the mountain bike trails for dogs. It was a great end to a great day. We couldn't wait for our next Colorado adventure.