Kickin' it in Colorado: Everything is Better in Boulder

We had less than twenty-four hours in Boulder. We decided that the best course of action would be to drop off our things at our Airbnb (highly recommended, by the way) and making a beeline for the Flatirons.

We started our hike at the Chautauqua Trailhead where the views got us so excited, we could barely wait to snap a quick picture before taking off:

It was midday when we began our ascent with temperatures in the mid-eighties with a starting elevation of around 5,700 feet. We were drenched in sweat approximately three seconds in.

I call this the Leaning Vitruvian Woman

Along our hike we came across "fields" of broken-up boulders that we had to traverse to continue:

"Please God, let me get tan."

Five points if you can spot the critter shell.

It took us about an hour and a half to hike the Royal Arch and wind our way to the peak of the 1st/2nd flatiron, where we took a break and enjoyed the marvelous views before heading back down.

Smiling because I achieved something, and also perhaps from oxygen deprivation

It was such a beautiful, different trail to hike - full of tight switchbacks and friendly locals (who didn't seem to be breaking a sweat at all, meanwhile there we were filling buckets with ours!) And definitely a challenging one too - over the course of about five miles, we experienced an altitude change of 1,422 feet. At one point we even saw scramblers slowly making their way up a wall of rock; way too scary without rope for my taste, but cool to see nevertheless. 

In the evening we returned to the Flatirons, but this time in the comfort of our dry, air-conditioned car. 

We picked the summit of Flagstaff mountain to watch the sun set over the city.

We encountered this huuuuge rock that offered amazing views but that required a tricky bit of maneuvering to get on top of.

Ravenous, we found Korean food dinner (typical) on campus and washed it down with local beer at Mountain Sun brewery - a great spot for people watching if you can get a seat outside facing Pearl Street.

Boulder is one of those places where you show up and think to yourself, "Is this place for real?" Everything is sort of perfect. There's a beautiful college campus surrounded by young, smart people. There is Pearl Street with all of its art and restaurants and street performers. There's a babbling creek that gurgles pleasantly through the city. There are little breweries and dispensaries. There's the Flatirons range looming in the distance. There are bikers and runners and climbers all along the unbroken mountainous trails. There are dreamy old houses on tree-lined streets. There's a requirement that you must have a six pack to be a resident. It is a wonderful, curated, privileged bubble. 95% of me is completely smitten with it, and the remaining 5% of me is like, "what the actual fuck."

For all the reasons above, Boulder is also where we picked to have our wedding next summer. We're beyond excited for our guests from all over the world to come and see what this cool place has to offer - and we're hoping a few of them might fall for it as hard as we have and move to Colorado with us and live the rest of our days outfitted in head-to-toe Patagonia, driving Subarus and swapping stories of our latest backcountry expeditions.