Day 5-July 14-Hanging Lake

Fitness fusion? Spinning? Walking? Riding my bike? Do you think this really prepared me for what I did today?!?! Oh my gosh.... I must say that I was totally exhausted by the end of the day. I was not prepared for the arduous task that I endured. We traveled by car to get to the destination of our daily adventure. We parked the car at Dotsera which is between Avon and Glenwood Springs on I 70. We bicycled for almost 6 miles to where we parked our bikes for our hike. The bike trail is like having your own bike highway. There was no other type of vehicle on this trail. It went along with river and the interstate. In this very narrow canyon of I70 there is a bike path, a railroad track, a river, and a four lane divided highway. So cool!!! After parking our bikes, we changed into our hiking boots and proceeded to climb for almost an hour to the Hanging Lake. This climb was a 10 % grade. We were stepping over big boulders and climbing and sweating and panting. I have never done anything so difficult. I really wanted to quit but here was Steve and Gwen in their 70's moving on and Patty was encouraging me, so I pressed onward. When we got near the top, the grade was much more than 10%. This top was amazing. There was a beautiful clear blue lake with fish swimming in it and the water feeding this lake was coming from a waterfall out of a hole in the rock. This lake is appropriately named the Hanging Lake. Making it down this trail was not taxing to my cardio vascular system, but was certainly work to my joints and muscles. I was very careful to step slowly and deliberately. It took probably about 50 minutes to make it down. Then, it was change back to the tennis shoes to bicycle back the 6 miles to the car. Whew!! Can you say exhausted? The day ended with meeting Steve's daughter, grandson, granddaughter for dinner in Buena Vista before returning home.