Colorado Engagement

Tiny frog Claire found while we explored.

Big news, Claire and I are engaged! Since I haven't had any race news since Chicago I thought it'd be fun to put up a few pictures of our trip out to Colorado. We left last week and stopped for a night in Badlands National Park. Kevin has recently fallen in love with Custer State Park and tried to convince us to stop there, but we just used the stop to break up the 14 hour drive. We had a little time to climb around some of the formations. From the Badlands into Colorado we had to cross the South Platte River which has been flooding because of the heavy rains in the front range. After a quick stop in Denver we drove up to Leadville. We had planned on staying at my brother Eli's house for 3 nights, but he and his roommates have not prioritized cleanliness... the house was semi-uninhabitable and after making it through one night we decided to book a room in the Leadville hostel for the next two nights.

Good morning.

Close-up Claire took of some wild raspberries.

We had time in Leadville to spend a day relaxing and one day went on a dayhike most of the way up La Plata peak, one of Colorado's 14er's. It was gorgeous weather for the hike and a pretty exhausting trail. We made it up to about 13,500 and decided to call it a day.

First night's campsite.

 We left Leadville Saturday morning and drove to the Maroon Bells to start our backpacking trip. We were planning on hiking the 4 pass loop around the Bells over 5 days. Eli and I hiked the same loop in 2009 and I was excited to do it with Claire. The mountains are stunning and all of the Aspen were turning yellow at the time. We hiked up to treeline and set camp for the first night on a rock outcropping overlooking a nice stream. We had a great dinner and the skies were clear as the sun set.

During the night a storm rolled in and dumped rain on us all night long. We stayed dry in the tent which was great, considering how hard it was raining. It was still raining when we woke up in the morning and we snoozed in the tent for an hour or so hoping it would let up. It didn't. I decided to get up and see how the skies looked. Amazingly, two other backpackers were hiking by at that moment. I waved and jogged over.

Me: “How's it going?”

Random Hiker: “Pretty good, a bit wet, haha.”

Me: “Haha, yeah. Where you guys headed?”

RH: “Home!” (tone implying that this should have been very obvious)

Me: “Did you come over the pass?”

RH: “No, we were planning on hiking over this morning.”

Me: “Yeah... so do you think this weather is going to blow over?”

RH: (stares at me like I'm a complete idiot) “I think this is here to stay buddy.”

Me: (abashed) “Yeah... that's what I was thinking.”

Dramatic re-creation of the proposal.

Claire and I hashed it out for a few minutes and decided to call it a vacation. It was time to head home and have a couple days of staycation to recover. I had been planning to wait and pop the question on Claire as we reached a stunning lake set beneath a mountain or topped a pass with an all-encompassing beautiful view, but that wasn't going to happen. But I wasn't going to let the weather stop me, so I interrupted Claire and told her I had a surprise. I pulled out the ring I had smuggled into my pack and got down on one knee. I had mentally prepared a romantic speech about how I love Claire's confidence and integrity and everything about her, not just the sunshine and rainbows. But what I actually said was very short and confused... I don't really remember it all. Relevant Video

Despite all that, Claire said yes. We packed up camp and hiked back down to the car. We don't have any plans for a location or date yet, but it's going to be a blast of a wedding!

We're so happy!

It's a shame we have to leave.