Lake City, CO-Wetterhorn Peak

My FIRST fourteener!!!
Fourteener (n.): A mountain reaching an elevation of 14,000 ft or above.

On Friday, myself, Elizabeth and Dan and Karla Clader ventured 2.5 hours out of Montrose to the Wetterhorn Peak trailhead. We got up at 3:00 am to leave by 3:30. We geared up, fueled up, packed up and left. We made it to the trailhead by 6 am and began climbing at 6:30. It was a beautiful hike/climb. For most of the beginning we could see the peak we would climb as well as some other mountains and ridges.

That's our peak in the back left.

Near the end of the climb there was a steep rocky area where we got off trail a bit. In order to get back on our course we had to contour the side of the mountain. It was both exhilerating and downright scary.

The last 150 ft of the climb requires what's called scrambling. You use both your hands and feet to climb to the summit.

Of Colorado's 54 fourteeners, this is one that has no false summits, so you're in the midst of the focus and concentration it takes to scramble through the last 150 ft when you reach the summit out of no where. We summitted at about 10:30 am. It's important to start your descent before noon because of afternoon thunderstorms.

There has never been a time in my life when I have felt such a range of emotions. I was scared, tired, excited, happy, accomplished, and amazed. It was by far the most fun, most awesome and most challenging thing I have ever done. It started raining about halfway down, but it was a light rain and we had on rain jackets. We reached the car at about 2:00pm and it was beginning to rain harder. After a light lunch in Lake City we drove back to Montrose for much needed showers and naps. It was a wonderful day.
We're hoping to climb Sneffels, another fourteener, before the end of the summer.

San Onofre State Beach, CA

What an amazing week!!!
After planning and preparing and learning and making mistakes, we embarked on our week long camping trip to California. We drove halfway, stayed the night in Utah and drove again the next day. We had 11 high school kids and 7 leaders. We camped at San Onofre State beach, near San Diego. We spent nearly the entire week on the oceanside. We surfed, swam, sunned, and just hung out with kids. It was beautiful!!!

Throughout the week we had several speakers come and talk about living out your faith with the kids. Instead of devotions each of the kids signed up for several one-on-one times throughout the week with the leaders when we could just talk with them about the trip, their lives right now, and where they are with God. They responded really well to this and I think that God was really working in the situation. It was cool to take a group of kids from the mountains, out of their comfort zone, to the ocean. They really change in new situations and they bonded. What was also cool was that this group of kids was different from those that came to Mexico so we got an oppurtunity to bond with and relate to different kids on that level. We went one afternoon to one of the leader's sister's house and swam in the pool. On the last day we suprised the kids with a trip to Disneyland. Which was fun for us too :)

It was quite the adventurous trip. We made some pretty significant programming and planning mistakes, like forgetting cooking equipment, miscommunicating with our team, and forgetting to think things through completely. But what kind of learning experience would it have been if everything had gone perfectly? The youth director, in watching us plan this trip, intentionally let us make some mistakes so that we could learn from them. It was cool to hear him say, at the end of the week, that it was good for him to see us scramble a bit and then come together as a team and work things out. It was such a wonderful learning experience. And how amazing that my job led me to the ocean for a week!!!

Ouray, CO

Hiking. My new favorite activity. Well, at least next to Thursday night ultimate games.
Anyway. Friday night we had an overnighter for the high school girls. We made them Bruschetta to start, followed by salad and baked ziti with Jen's family sauce recipe. It was phenomenal. We hung out and watched Princess Bride while having strawberry banana smoothies, and then rested well for our hike in the morning.

On Saturday morning myself, Roz, and Elizabeth hiked the same Cascade Falls trail I wrote about previously, only this time we hiked all the way to the top. It was a 3mile hike up the mountain, with some steep and rocky switchbacks, but we made it. It was beautiful. The upper falls was even more amazing than the lower falls, and we got some great pictures. We hung out at the top for almost an hour before traversing the 3miles back down to our car and heading home for lunch. It was amazing.

the upper falls

mountains

i climbed a mountain!

red mountain

a part of the trail