Testosterone Festival 2009

Being the proud Coloradoan that I am, I wanted to take the Ervin boys (my in-laws) on a little trip to get lost in the wilderness. So Darryll, Tristen, and Adam drove out from Utah and Jason flew out from Atlanta to take in the sights. Dad Green also graced us with his presence.

Our destination was Lake Constantine in the Holy Cross Wilderness area just south of Vail. During our trip we planned on hiking to the summit of Mt. of the Holy Cross, one of Colorado's many peaks over 14,000 ft. However, from the get go we realized that probably wasn't going to happen. The second we got out of the car in the parking lot it started to hail on us. Turns out, that would be the theme for the remainder of the trip.

The hail and rain let up and we decided to give it a go. Here we are at the trail head.

Tristen had seen better days.

The lone Green boys on the trip. As usual we realized that we packed way too much. Our packs were heavy. Better safe than sorry I guess.

A day hike to the Tuhare Lakes. This is the upper of the two lakes.

The waterfall from Upper Tuhare Lake to Lower Tuhare. Very impressive.

This was our viewing rock. We had a spectacular view of the lake and all the hikers passed us by without knowing we were there.

Funny thing when you try to fish tiny little streams, you get a lot of snags. Sometimes when you yank on your fishing line to release a snag, the lure frees itself and comes flying back at you at the speed of light. Apparently my reflexes aren't fast enough, as this lure caught me in the cheek. Fun stuff.

A magnificent view of the Gore Range from our campsite.

We all caught many fish. Naturally, I caught the most.

Dad was the king of the waterfall.

Our state flower, the Columbine.

The marmot is not our state animal, but they were plentiful. One of these guys attacked Jason's fishing pole while he wasn't around and ate the cork on the handle. I doubt these guys have seen that many people, but they were quite brave. We had to shoo them away from our bags several times on our day hike to the upper lakes.

The trip was fun and very wet. It rained several times a day and every night. Of course there wasn't a cloud in the sky while we hiked down.