Lost lake trail, Vail CO

The alarm went off at 3:15. Up showered, breakfast and on the road by 4:07. Stopped three blocks from house to check for sunglasses. At 4 in the morning the sunglasses do not seem like a necessary item, but they will become necessary in just a few hours. While Kathi is checking for sunglasses, I get that nagging feeling that the toilet is still running. I know I was the last one out of the house and I did not stop and listen. Ok you are asking yourself well, how often is the toilet running when your leave? Maybe twice in 16 years. Argh, welcome to my world. (how many times have you tirned the car around blocks from home because you cant not remember closing the garage...)Ok, I bet we all have a hand wringing moment when leaving the house! Besides for that one little tiny thing our trip is twelve hours old and we are off to a perfect start. Remember perfect is always in the eye of the beholder.

Arrived at FastPark to leave the car in a special locked lot and took a shuttle to the airport. FastPark was very slick. Door to door service, gave us a morning paper, wrote down for us where we parked, loaded and unloaded our bags. What a great morning.

Went right through security and then sat and read the paper finishing just in time to board the plane. Kathi and I had three seats to ourselves AND for the first time ever the baby next to us across the aisle was happy for the 2 and a half hour flight. What a great morning.

Bags all arrived and we quickly made our way to the Emerald isle at National Car Rental. Ok, if your remember last year we spent over an hour trying very hard to get a vehicle that was going to work. After loading all of our items into the first truck we found a big hunk of metal in the front tire. Ok, unload and reload into second vehicle climb in, buckle up...it does not start. Unload. Find third vehicle, check all tires, start engine before loading. 20 miles after leaving the rental place the change oil light comes on. Yes, this year we are ready with a strategy. Find SUV or 4x4 truck. Start engine, while other person checks tires and dents. Then load.

This year we have a Chevy Traverse. Nice ride! Room for 7, not that we are planning to pick-up any hitch-hikers, but there is plenty of room for our virtual hikers. We actually have rented a standard size car and held our breath that we could just use Kathi's Emerald card to snag a SUV or 4x4. Again, what a great day we are having!

We make good time driving to Vail as with the holiday there is little traffic. At Vail we get off of the interstate and head back 6.5 miles back on a gravel (well sometimes gravel sometimes red mud) road. This road is labeled as a good 2 wheel drive road. Perhaps they meant if you can manage to have 2 wheels on the ground then that is good... The road was similar to a wash board with pot holes and boulders sticking out of it. This road is at times two cars wide, at times one car wide, but mostly one and half cars wide so if you meet someone, somebody's got to hang off of the edge. We met one car on the way out and they are going the same way as us, but stopping to take pictures. They happily let us pass.

We arrive at the trailhead and prepare to hit the trail. The trailhead is at 9,651 feet above sea level. Remember Milwaukee is a whopping 780 feet above sea level. We just need to find a hike to put some air through our lungs at a reasonable altitude. This hike was a good way to start. Great smells from the pine, soft trail for our feet. Gained 808 feet and hiked 6.5 miles. We top out in elevation around 10250. A great day.

We managed to find lost lake. Small, not much to look at but a good hike to get the adventure under way. We saw on the trail three differnt couples. All of them had their dogs with them. Two of the groups had nice 70 pound size dogs. The last couple had a dog that must have weighed less than my hiking boot. What are they thinking that poor little doggie would be taking one million steps.

Towards the last two miles Of our hike it it began to sprinkle. So we fast footed it back to the car to beat the rain. We made it just before it started to rain. But now with the rain we are going to be driving down that wonderful road. Our trip down turned out to be an exercise in deciding where to pull over so an oncoming car could drive past us. I really had a hard time understanding where they were all going besides for past us? And as always it is my side of the car dangling so precariously close to the cliff's edge. During our hanging off the side of the road we notice a grouping of flowers stuck into the side. We imagine that someone went over the edge there. I sort of well almost can peer straight down, but the sit of it while in a car is more than what I want to spend time thinking about. I will find something else to think about... What a great day! I get to exercise my heart while sitting in this wonderful Traverse. I should have had my heart rate monitor on as I am sure it was just as high as when we were hiking. Hey, sort of like the virtual hike you are all on :)

All in all this was the best first day ever of our hiking adventures. Well, that is if The toilet is not running back home!

I wanted to post some pictures so you could see how hazy it is from the wild fires smoke, I guess the iPad is a poor choice of tools to do this. I am going to have to do some trouble shooting to solve this tech issue.

I know it is hot there, but do your best to stay cool. We ended the day in a cold rain so hope it is coming your way. Have a great day!