Mt. Evans or Bust??

    So today started at 4am, rolling out of bed to drive 2 hours to hit the trail head as soon as possible, to torture myself with an 11.5 mile, 14,000+ft hike... it was great! So we met my new friend Laura at the trail head around 630ish where it was quite cold. As we bundled up and trekked down the trail, we were searching for the trail for Mt. Bierstadt, which supposedly forked off the trail for Mt. Evans. Both of these peaks are over 14k but we set out for Mt. Evans so that was what we were going to do! That is until we couldn't find the trail! We were in Arapahoe Nat'l Forest and didn't have any cell phone reception so no google maps to check the terrain. We probably could have just made our own way up the mountain, as this was no dense forest, but instead we decided it was smartest to stick with the well marked trail and hike Mt. Bierstadt! As we were descending through the marsh at the base of the mountain we came across a real treat!!! There were 3 Moose munching on the grass and dipping into the cool water. This was a real treat because you NEVER see moose in Colorado. Canada, yes... Colorado not so often. Actually I have never seen a moose on Colorado, although I did hear that there are some here. As a matter of fact this might be the first time I have even seen a moose in the wild (err.. not on a wall...) It was probably the most beautiful thing I have seen here in Colorado, and another reason why it was good we couldn't find the original trail! We hiked the cool wind whipping trail and alternated between freezing our tails off (yes, in August) and burning up with sweat from the hard work! After scaffolding some boulders we finally reached the summit with about 30 our our closest friends (busy trail today) and picked a rock to sit back and enjoy the fruit of our labor. By that time the wind had died down and the sun was shining, warming our faces, the air was crisp and clean and I was reminded how lucky I am to live here.