Schaeffer Cabin 80th Birthday

We took the opportunity to get out of town for the weekend and go up to the cabin. This year is the Schaeffer Cabin's 80th birthday.

It was originally built in 1932 on a site up Tarryall Creek about 3 miles from where it lives now, in the townsite of Como.

The girls get very excited once they smell the trees and all the mountain smells when we get near Kenosha Pass.

They start seeing cows in the pastures along the highway in South Park and they have their special "counting cows" bark.

They do know how to count, and they are very accurate. They don't stop counting until they've counted every cow.

There was a big storm moving east through Denver and we drove through it, but by the time we arrived in Como it wasn't raining anymore and we only got a few drops and some wind in the evening.

Sunday morning we slept in. I woke up early and took some pictures around sunrise, when it was still cloudy, and went back to bed. The sky was perfectly clear by mid-morning. We had coffee and took our time getting started, but then we took the girls hiking along the Gold Dust Trail below Mt. Silverheels.

We were amazed at the trees that were down from the wind this winter. One of the windowpanes on a window at the cabin got broken when the wind hurled some shingles at it from the top of the outhouse.

On the trails there were huge trees downed, the Forest Service had already been through with chainsaws and moved a lot of debris, but there were huge holes in the ground where gigantic trees had been uprooted along the trail.

South Park is one of the windier places in the universe. There have been times when we've arrrived at the cabin during the winter months to find one side completely buried under a snowdrift.

All the iris were blooming, the front of the cabin grows more of them every year. They are my favorite flower up there.

Iris, everywhere.

It was cold at night. Dennis said, "It's not a sauna" but I insisted on a fire anyway. It was in the 50s Saturday night. That's 100 degrees colder than what I'm used to!

Sunrise east of the cabin, looking across South Park toward Kenosha Pass.

Sunday morning when we went up the trail toward Silverheels, it was warm, so we chose the trails where there would be more stream crossings for the girls to drink and swim.

The mountains between Como and Breckenridge.

Trail Butts.

Isabelle isn't afraid of the troll under the bridge.

On the hike up Silverheels, there are these two old cabins.

Baby aspen leaves.

No hike with the dogs would be complete without the ultimate trail snack, doggie M&Ms.

Isabelle loves to lie down in the stream.

Boreas Mountain in the background.

Running? I did 40 miles this past week. Mostly good quality miles, decent pace, tempo run, a 5K, and plenty of strides. You'd think I'm training for one 5K, instead of 70 of them strung together in 5 days. Better to be undertrained...