4th of July weekend

I'll catch up on our other adventures this coming week, but I'll share our weekend details tonight. Because we've been traveling lately, we used the day of independence celebration as a completely lazy day. We may have watched hours of tv and had fast food Mexican for dinner. That morning we had gone early morning to a ward breakfast at a park and were able to throw a frisbee around a little. We'll be more patriotic next year. Friday night, we packed up for a Saturday adventure up to the Pecos wilderness.

Scott and I did dress a little patriotic.

We decided it was time for real, real adventure here in New Mexico. We drove up to the Santa Fe ski area where the trail head was. Nambé Lake was our destination, about 3.5 miles from the trail head. The first couple miles were pretty easy, not too bad, but the last mile was pretty crazy, from 55 to 70 degree incline. 

We saw lots of people on trail, which was different for us since usually we go where no one else is. It did make it easy to take more family pictures which was nice. :) We took our time on the way in making sure to keep Scott happy and fed which paid off because he was happy and fun to be with. 

This was along the easiest section of the trail, we had come up over a saddle and were walking along the side of the mountain to the turn off point to go up a very steep mountain.

Just to set the record straight, people always wonder why I carry Scott instead of Stan. Scott weighs a lot less than all the things Stan has to carry (3L of water, food, wipes and diapers, sweaters, ponchos, etc.). I'm happy to carry the child. :)

There were beautiful aspens all along the trail.

Most of the trail we were pretty well surrounded by the trees but this was a small clearing before we headed up and up.

The lady we had take this picture was hilarious. She took a picture from about four different angles of the three of us. We were just glad to have a photographer I guess.

The beginning of our ascent. There was a beautiful creek coming down from the lake and we wove over it a few times.

It is hard to capture how steep this trail really was, this was the least steep of the steep part.

One of our breaks to keep this boy happy. It was working :)

Stan is better at getting Scott to smile for pictures than I am. He just stares at the camera whenever I try.

Nambè Lake at the outlet.

The bowl, when we were sitting next to the lake, we saw someone up on top of that ridge.

He was so happy to get out of the carrier.

We kept hiking past the lake a little and found a beautiful meadow and stream area.

This is looking back toward the lake.

Another picture trying to capture how steep it was.

We saw some beautiful flowers all along the trail. We have loved having more rain this year and seeing the fruits of it.

This was the most accessible of these beautiful, huge columbines

The elephant flower

We made it back to the car right before the rains hit! It was such a wonderful day!!