Last of the snow days

Our final day in the Vail Valley, and our second big hike. I can't resist the opportunity to post another handsome photo of Max in his element! This is where he shines.

This picture gives you a bit of an idea of the steepness of the slopes we climb in Arrowhead. This part feels nearly straight up! You can definitely feel the burn after one of these pitches...especially after a year of being "citified"!

View over the valley.


I think you can actually see Sam's head wincing away from Max's fierce lion's growl here. Max really wants Sam to grab the stick and play with him, but his growl is so fierce that Sam can't bring himself to bite. Just look at those teeth!

Heading back down to the valley floor.

How do you unwind after two days of heavy hiking? Hot tubs and sushi is how. The Arrowhead hot tub is a bit on the — um — hot side, so it's a challenge getting in, as you can see from the look on my face.

OK, phew, I think I can stand it now!

Sato is the restaurant where M cooked during many of his years in Vail. We always stop in for a dinner of epic proportions when we're in town. On this night, we ordered so much sushi that this is what was left over after we'd stuffed ourselves with as much food as we could possibly hold. I wish I could say that this was the first time we've over-ordered. Really it's a miracle that we forced down as much as we did. (But it's not every day we have this sort of opportunity, after all!) And what's worse, we took home a warm white chocolate and caramel bread pudding, which we polished off at the condo later that night.
If you stop in to Sato, the spicy garlic edamame is to die for (new on the menu this year).

Max poached a child's ball on the patio and had a go at it. You'd think that, at his age and with two repaired knees, he'd be tuckered out after three days of hiking at altitude. Not so this time around. He had energy left over.

M think Max looks redder than usual this spring. I can't tell. He does look redder in these photos, but a lot of that is the lighting filter from my photoshop ;)

Although the storm hadn't been as bad as predicted, we got up early on Friday morning in order to allow ourselves plenty of driving time before Mike had to be at work that afternoon. And it's lucky we did. This is just before the East Vail exit on I-70. Traffic was at a crawl, and trucks lined up for about three miles in the chain-up lane.

This is quite a bit of snow for mid-April! The roads weren't as bad as they might have been, but still...that's A LOT of snow!


Temps were still warm enough for the lanes to melt a bit, but it's very lucky we got that early start because the pass closed not long after we went through and remained closed for much of the day.

This is on Vail Pass.

And Copper Mountain on a snowy morning. You wouldn't know from the light that it's 10:30 a.m.!