Breckenridge Summer vacation mornings are different for everyone - sleeping in, early fly fishing, TV watching (which is a rare thing in our home.) It’s for big breakfasts and slow mornings. It’s where I can do a mid-morning run and still wear a long sleeve top.
I can’t remember doing the Breckenridge Gondola in many years so Carter, Addison and I drove to the gondola, parked the car and ran back (less than .9 miles) to get some exercise. We got Delaney and walked back! We rode the gondola up to Peak 7. We had taken the kids here years and years ago and walked around. I gave them a choice of riding the Mountain roller coaster, the alpine slide or ice skating and the girls were 100% ice skating and Carter was indifferent, mainly wanting to fly fish! So we took a beautiful hike down the middle section of Peak 7, under the gondola called Cucumber Trail. It was a beautiful hike and we found out that you can take a mountain bike up the gondola and ride down this and many other trails! So that will be an adventure for next time.
We went straight to the pool and then came back to the condo and watched both Miss Congeniality movies. Carter and Addison thought Sandra Bullock was so funny! Blake finished his long day of virtual meetings Day #2 and then we loaded up dinner and headed to a spot we had been introduced to 5 years ago, by a fly fishing guide - Montgomery Reservoir.
I had read about a super short and easy hike there, called Montgomery Falls hike that was supposed to be at the very end of the gravel road and wanted us all to do that before we started fishing. Well, we all followed the path that was very clear and it kept going and going and then started going straight up. The lush green grass and tree roots then turned into large boulders, clearly left from a giant rock slide. We looked up and saw a cool waterfall straight up and while I was in the very back, with my large Yeti filled with an adult beverage (remember this was going to be an "easy" .6 mile stroll with parents of 3 and 5 year olds, to an abandoned mine, giving it a rating of a 10! I knew something was amiss but everyone else was confidently climbing the sharp boulders and Delaney was leading the way with Blake! I knew this was the wrong trail and by this time, actually we didn’t even have a trail to follow since it was nothing but rocks. I paused to get my bearings and take in the view of the stunning Montgomery Reservoir behind us, and when I glanced to the far away adjacent mountain side, much lower down, I saw the abandoned mine building that I recognized from online photos of the trail I thought we were on. By that time, we were so far up and everyone else was far ahead of me almost to the incredibly high waterfall, so I kept my mouth shut and kept focusing on finding footings. Carter was so sweet staying back with me and he and I could hear the the rushing water fall directly underneath the huge boulders that we were traversing. We ultimately made it and I’m not going to lie, my heart was racing. I was trying to enjoy the moment but it was hard for me which is not a normal feeling.
We did pause at the top for a special moment while Addison told Delaney that Addison's favorite teacher of all time, Mrs. Hernandez was going to be her teacher for 2nd grade and that both of her very best friends, Emma Martin and Valentina were in her same class. It was going to be a spectacular year and the top of this crazy, amazing, scary hike is where Delaney will remember being told!
Once down, my heart was still racing and I was over run with such gratitude for everyone getting down safely. There were some people parked at the bottom and when we walked by, a lady said, "Are you the family that was at the top of that waterfall? I told my husband that we weren't going to leave until we knew you guys had gotten down safely. That looked insane!" Those comments were all I needed along with my heart rate to know that I wanted to sit and chill for a while before joining the rest of the family fishing. So I fed everyone dinner and did just that.
The fishing ended up being icing on the cake, Carter caught five rainbow. You could see the fish everywhere and without a net to bring them in, it made for hysterical scenes of me and Blake racing to help him bring them in by hand. We couldn't have asked for a better night. Exhilaration, cool temperatures, simplicity and nature and lots of beautiful fish! We will always remember the poor fish that had a lure and orange bobber connected and the bobber rapidly moving to the center of the lake.
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