Friday, in Colorado!

This is midway up the mountain at Beaver Creek. Yes, that's snow on those distant mountains.

We are here in Beaver Creek staying in a pretty nice condo except that the loft is really hot. The temperatures outside are EXCELLENT , it was in the low 60's when we got here last night, and I doubt today left the low-mid eighties. NO humidity, it's great, we should all live here.

The condo is just a few minutes from Beaver Creek Village, the main base ski village. We are just kind of hovering above it, up the hill.

This morning we took the ski lift to about mid mountain, a little over 10,000 feet. This is a picture of DD and boys before the hike. They look all energetic and well rested, no?



We hiked a short loop at the top of the lift, around a mile or 1.5, then had lunch at the lodge there. Here's a hiking picture - I think it will get bigger if you click on it.










DS and his friend took the lift back down, walked around the village, the went back home.



We hiked down the mountain, about 4.5 miles, took exactly two hours. That only sounds easy, hiking down a mountain, if you've never done it before, by the way. Above is a shot of the trail - lovely, lovely.


Below is a picture of a beautiful stand of Aspen we found ourselves in on the way down.


It was a beautiful hike, we made periodic noises in case any black bear were around, and we were happy to finish! It is a little over 8,000 feet here where we are staying.

Breathing was interesting at times today, particularly after DD and I ran up a small bank (all to identify what turned out to be a deer) and it took a while to recover our professional hiking demeanor. This, for the uninitiated, means we were gasping for air. Just a bit.