Golden Gate Canyon Getaway!

Wow! My blogs have gotten few and far between. Taking 12 hours of masters courses in 3 months time will do that to ya! But this last weekend, Grant and I took a mini trip to Golden Gate Canyon State Park for a camping getaway. Our first camping trip in CO! We quickly learned to camp somewhere in Colorado, you better book it weeks out. Apparently it's a popular weekend pastime. :) When Grant called on Thursday, everything in the park was booked! Everything! But fortunately, we were able to snag the last campsite at a "first come first serve" site outside of the park. So camping we went!

Saturday morning, after setting up camp (or I should say Grant setting up camp!), we went on a short hike at Cold Springs. I must admit. The sign at the bottom of the Vista hike might have freaked me out....

Grant of course, was not phased. He didn't think it necessary to take Sage back to camp, even though it said not to take pets on the hike, and his argument was "we could fight off a mountain lion - just not a bear". Guess we lived though - even made it to the top!

Sunday was our mountain biking day. We headed to check out Golden Gate Canyon State Park, explored the beautiful creeks and fishing holes, did some short hiking trails, and then loaded up the bikes to hit the mountain. What we learned, the hard way, is that trails in the mountains marked as "Difficult" are in fact - Difficult! The seven mile loop we thought we could tackle was quite deceiving. It looked so great to start - dirt paths through open fields of wild flowers with an occasional tree root or rocky path. 

What we learned, about two miles in, was that once into the mountains on a "difficult" bike run, the dirt paths disappear! In fact, the path in general was hard to distinguish in some parts. Made me laugh. Seriously, creeks to cross, steep inclines and declines, completely rocky, parts that were difficult enough to push my bike up or carry it across. I can't imagine how someone stays on their bike to do it! I think we probably biked 4 of the 7 miles - it's very possible I got a harder workout walking my bike up the 3 miles of rocky inclines than riding those other 4 miles! It definitely pushed my limits. I fell three times, Grant had two awesome spills as well. Might have feared for my life riding down a few of those declines, but we lived! Mark it off the bucket list! I guess my new goal should be before we move out of Colorado, I'm able to ride that entire course. It's unlikely that will ever happen....but good goal to push towards!

Here's some of the pics I took in between riding and walking our bikes:

Great trip all in all! Lot of outdoorsy fun and I was amazed at my talented campfire cooking hubby! His camping stove was out of propane, so we got innovative. Gluten free mac and cheese with ground beef for dinner. Eggs and coffee for breakfast. All made over an open fire by my red headed hunk. Talk about granola! :)

Can't wait for the next camping trip! 

Two days of camping with BrittLit and the Russells next weekend! Hooray!