Mom’s Visit & 6th Anniversary Trail Run

Mom came into town to visit us 2 weekends ago (well, really to visit Sawyer) and we all had a great time together. I think we all felt she really bonded with Sawyer and Sawyer really got to know Mom. Mom came to Aspen with us for Joel & Lauren’s wedding and was super babysitter for Sawyer while we partied down at Buttermilk with all of our friends.

We all took a nice fall hike in Wilder Gulch at the top of Vail Pass one day and rolled over Independence Pass en route to Aspen to enjoy the awesome fall weather.

Then, our 6th year wedding anniversary was this past Saturday, October 3. Our good friend Sabrina was more than nice to come over and hang with Sawyer and the dogs while we had a 3 day activity planned. First was a trail run of one of our favorite trails accessible out our front door, the A10 trail, connecting Edwards and Arrowhead. This is a very popular mountain bike ride as you get a long 4 miles descent if biking from Arrowhead to Edwards. While we have both run, hiked, snowshoed this trail countless times, I have never really posted many pics of this fun loop. I believe the loop is about 10 miles Edwards to Arrowhead or vice versa with another 2+ miles on highway 6. I drove the car over to Arrowhead to leave it for us and ran the 2+ miles back home. Sabrina came over and Kristine & I departed up the trail around 11:45am.

This is such a great run with the first 4 miles from our house taking you up over 2,200′ vertical gain in about 4 miles to the high point of the trail at 9,425′. The views are outstanding of the Northern Sawatch Range and Lake Creek Valley.

We arrived at the car about 1 hour and 45 minutes after starting and quickly sped up to the Ritz Carlton Hotel at Bachelor Gulch for our 2nd activity for the day: a hour long couples massage that Kristine had set up! Let’s just say this was much needed and just plain awesome. We enjoyed the outdoor hot tub as well for 20 minutes afterwards.

Then, to top off our day, we changed, showered, and sped down to the Riverwalk Theater in Edwards to see the new Everest movie together at 4pm. We definitely wanted to see this together and actually really enjoyed it. Most other mountaineering-related Hollywood movies are a a bit far-fetched and unrealistic. However, Everest really seemed to be mostly spot-on with regards to the footage, camps, the story, etc. It is based on the 1996 Everest tragedy portrayed in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air.  It was much more emotional for us than we thought. I think its a super sad story to begin with and the fact we have some attachment towards that peak, it was really tough and hit home seeing Rob Hall die just below the South Summit and leaving his wife and unborn baby at home in New Zealand. Makes you think about things no doubt. But, we thought it was well done and the footage was super cool. I think they portrayed the mountain’s aspects very well from Kathmandu to the the Khumbu Valley, basecamp life, to the upper camps, and the Hillary Step and summit ridge. Even the box on the summit and the mound of prayer flags on the summit was very realistic.

We had a phenomenal day together just the two of us as it should be on your anniversary. Thanks so much to Sabrina for watching the 3 other Chalks for most of the day! Love you, Kristine!