Crested Butte and Paradise Divide

We took our long family vacation this year to the Crested Butte Area (Surprise... Surprise...) and Ouray/Telluride. There were many firsts on this trip. We took Taylor and Madison up Cement Creek and ventured to see some caves. Taylor hiked all the way up to the Caves, despite some minor complaining about his legs hurting. He was very excited when we got there and named the caves after all of his little girlfriends at home. Madison as usual was just along for the ride and enjoying every Minute of it.

The next day, we hiked a very short.. but steep route up to Long Lake... which is quite literally a "long" lake. There is a community canoe there and Kevin and Taylor took it for a spin. My mom pointed out to me later what an awful mother I was to let him go without a life vest... Live and Learn. We all survived. After that, we took the Washington Gulch Road up to Paradise Divide which is a very fun, if not precarious drive. We were supposed to do it in July with friends but we all backed out. It was a pretty as we remembered, and according to Kevin not quite as bad as we thought. The trail to Yule Pass shown here we started, but after losing Jake down a drainage (he recovered), we decided not to continue with kiddos. However, Kevin and I plan to go back and do it ourselves if we get a chance.

Finally, Taylor got to play with the Diggers and Fire pole everyday while we simply Let Madison crawl around and get dirty. She seems to be more adventurous than her brother was at this age and proves to like going down the slide!