On our recent vacation to the mountains it wasn't all fishing and cabin life. We did get out and hike a bit too. We decided that by thursday we would all be acclimated to the altitude enough to go for the big hike up to the summit pass. On this hike we would pass by at least eight lakes, cross over numerous streams and gain a few thousand feet in altitude. What we didn't know was how much snow there would be up there this year. The hike is hard enough without adding snow to it. Anyway, I wanted to try out my new gaiters which would keep snow out of my boots. Usually I will end up with a snowball behind the tongue of each boot and freezing the top of my feet. But not this year. The gaiters worked great!

The trail itself is a 6 mile round trip which isn't that bad. But it took us 6 hours to do it. I felt like I was going to die it was so hard to breathe. Joe said that if the big red hadn't been up ahead with Luis, just trucking along...then he would have turned around. The big red though was happy as pie. I have never seen her smile so much. (And she doesn't smile. Ever.)

Here is a photo of the hiking crew near Cooney Lake.