Saturday, September 4, 2010

Blue Lakes

I wanted to take Jacqueline to the Blue Lakes ever since I went and climbed Mt. Sneffels while passing them by. We finally found the time to do it, though it was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. We figured that the trail would be busy. It was a bit of a drive taking over an hour to get to the trailhead. The roads were good and we made sure to fill up the tires before we went. The trailhead was rather crowded with lots of vehicles there, such that we had to park a little away from it. We got little Z fed and then were on the trail. I got the duty of carrying her. I did not realize how much uphill was on the hike until I was carrying a 12 pound baby on my front side.
 I still did not quite know how to put the Baby Bjorn on properly so that it would fit more comfortably, so that was also an issue. She seemed happy, though and was just looking around at everything. Jacqueline was a little nervous about the hike since she had not been hiking much and was stuck with the duty of carrying the heavy pack loaded down with Zyla's accessories, almost all of which we knew that she was not going to need. Still we would rather be more prepared then less prepared. The trail started out in the trees by a river, but after a couple of good uphill miles it started to open up. We could see the mountains across the valley including Mt. Sneffels that I had climbed almost exactly a year ago. On this day we were not as ambitious and actually had to stop and take a break a little over halfway through to give Zyla a break outside of the Baby Bjorn. 
We got a lot of positive comments from passing hikers about getting our baby out when she was so young. We even saw another couple with a baby, but I don't think they made it to the lake because we passed them and never saw them on the way down. I knew that we were getting close as the views opened up a little bit. I was happy to be back here because the last time I did it in the dawn's early light, so my pictures were less than stellar. I even was able to get a picture of the waterfall that poured down the rocky cliffs near exit from the lake. Getting that picture was great because I knew we were very close and around the next bend was the junction for the upper lakes and the campsites. I was none too happy to see the lake because carrying a baby in the Bjorn was more work than carrying a 30 pound pack on your back. The water looked amazingly blue on this day and Jacqueline was also happy that she went through the effort of hiking to the lakes. I was stoked because Zyla had done such a good job. We had already hiked 3.3 miles and she was still in good spirits, though you could tell it was about eating time. The hard part was that once we found a nice private spot for her to feed, she just was not having it. She would eat for a little bit, but did not want to eat much. We even tried to give her the instant formula also and all we could get her to eat was an ounce or two. That was a little concerning because she had been so regular, but we figured no use arguing with the happy baby as she seemed just fine when we put her back in the Bjorn to hike back down the hill. We considered going to the Upper Blue Lakes until she did not want to feed and then thought we should get down. Plus we were both feeling good with this. We got to enjoy the way down with Zyla not having to do as much work and soaking in the awesome views. We still were getting lots of comments on the awesome little baby from all the late day hikers. The way down was definitely faster, but we were still spending a full day with all the effort it takes to just get out the door in the morning with the little one. We were happy that we made it to the lake and would just have to make another trip someday so that Jacqueline could see the upper two. I know they are not going anywhere, so they will always be there for us to explore.

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