Rocky Mountain National Park

We'll start with Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, as it is a place we've come to know together.

In 1997, Blake and I, and our friends John and Meridith, attempted to climb Longs Peak. We stayed at the YMCA in Estes Park and were kept awake by frisky teenagers giggling under our bedroom window who were part of some Christian camp. So when we awoke to start our hike at 2.30am, we didn't feel very bright. We walked up the path to Longs Peak under the stars and it was lovely. Dawn came and then sometime in the morning we came to Chasm Lake and stopped, and stayed and decided that was good. A couple of years later we went back with Meridith, and this time my brother Jasper and his friend Charlie. We went up to Chasm Lake again, and with no thought of conquering Longs Peak, because the lake was now a destination in itself.

I've painted this view four times since. This version is from 1999. Sarah.

I first visited the Park on an weeklong trip from Houston in 1987 with Andrew, Bryan, and Wally Beckham. Extraordinary though that trip was, it provided just a taste. When I began considering where to attend grad school, it may have been the Park that pulled us to Colorado in 1995 just as much as potential colleges. Sarah and I explored the Park extensively over the first few years after moving to Denver in 1995. We visited in all seasons and in all kinds of weather, hiking, backcountry camping, cross-country skiing, meandering, sitting, looking, and listening. After our work hours became less predictable and kids began appearing, we went some years without visiting the Park.

In 2010, we finally spent several days there with our sons Kenny and Sam, introducing them to some of the places we had come to love. Our ventures were, shall we say...shorter than we had worked up to back in the day, but excitement was had nonetheless with bear encounters, ranger-led hikes, stargazing with amateur astronomers (with telescopes the size of a Prius), and a couple new places. It's been over 25 years since my original visit, is still right in our backyard, and I think often about getting back in there.

This image is from Glacier Gorge in 1998. Blake.