Day 49: Remembering how to Walk

On our rest day, we "rested". We all like hiking, so we decided to take a drive up to Estes Park in the Rockies, a hub of hiking trails and beautiful nature. It's just 1.5 hours north of Fort Collins, where we were sleeping.

We had a delicious breakfast of Bill's corned beef hash-egg-veggie burritos, piled into the van, and drove off. Arriving around 1pm, we began what was probably the longest walk any of us had undertaken in the past 49 days, a 2 mile hike up to Gem Lake! Good thing walking is like riding a bike, and you never forget how! At this point we might be better at biking though o.O

Following is a photojournal of the breathtaking views we encountered

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At the beginning of the hike, we got caught in the rain, and tried to shelter under some overhangs

Maile found a nice rock to hide under

Meanwhile, Evan and I were climbing on top of some rocks

When the sun came back, I was trying to correct my shoulder tan line a bit (spoilers, it didn't work)

Finally we arrived at Gem Lake! If you look closely you can see some Spokes across the reflecting pool

Some of the team decided to climb that hill behind the lake, while me and a couple others stayed and relaxed by the water

They got some pretty epic pics from the top

Wow, just... wow. Time to head down the mountain, and spend some time in Estes Park, a cute touristy mountain town

Maile and Erin were excited to find some cubic ice cream as a post-hike snack

And Leah found a cool new hat! Ok... maybe someone else picked it out for her, but either way she looks fly

This evening, back in Fort Collins, Erin had a hard time deciding what to order. We also ran into the guys from the shop that had tuned our bikes today, Recycled Cycles, and chatted with them after dinner.

That's it for today! While we could've used some alone time to decompress, we were all glad we made it up to the Rockies to do some hiking. That evening after dinner, we fell into our sleeping bags and snoozed, tired from this rest day and preparing for our first ride into the Rockies tomorrow.

-Caralyn