Christopher Jagers

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Colorado: Red in the Cheeks

We took our time driving from Santa Fe to Telluride Colorado, luckily the trip was beautiful (and my sister has a good ipod). Below is a picture from one of our hikes in Telluride, not bad. The name of this city actually came about because it had the same name of another mining town in Colorado, Columbia. So, the leaders of the town decided to re-name it after a mineral in hopes of bringing miners.

We went hiking every day, and I have many more pictures that I will put on Flickr soon. Below is a picture from our first 7hr hike that was much more extreme than we planned on. This was a 3000 ft elevation change to the top of a 11,700 mountain named Gold Hill. This hike was full of scaling rocks, vertical passes, and snow banks (where one can slide to their death). I’m not sure we would have done this hike had we known more about it, but I am sure glad we did. This was the most scenic and memorable part of the trip. I am still hurting.

Below is a pic from another hike with my dad and my sister, magnified for your viewing pleasure. I was shocked at how inadequate pictures are at capturing the granduer of the mountains. Everytime I would take a picture, I would look at my little screen with huge disappointment, why bother?

My dad nicknamed my sister the “salamander.” She was seemingly weightless with perfect traction on these climbs - sort of demoralizing to my dad and I who are less in shape.

After our hikes, our whole family spent a great deal of time lounging and reading. My mother read her Bible, my dad read a book on “attachment theory”, I read several art magazines, and my sister read the internet - she set it up the night before (stealing a wireless connection from one of our neighbors). All and all, the trip was very peaceful, and I really enjoyed laying around with my family. Vacations like this really put life back into perspective.

posted by cjagers at 08:51am