Greyrock Trail in Poudre River Canyon

 After an early dinner Sunday night we hopped in the car and headed up the Poudre River canyon. Our plan was to dip our feet in the river and play, but it was too beautiful to stop so quickly on our drive once we came upon the spot to officially do that, so we kept driving.
We did stop at Greyrock trail. Dave and I hiked this trail at least 8 years ago. It was our first full day in CO and we were dying to get into the mountains. We drove in and found this hike. Well its a 2,000 + elevation gain.
We were not prepared with enough water, nor were our bodies acclimated to the altitude. We pushed ourselves unknowingly only to enjoy breath-taking vistas of the plains and snow-capped mountains. Later that night we had headaches and didn't feel great.
Lesson learned!

Once we saw this trail again, many married years and 2 kids later, we had to reminisce. We crossed the bridge and hit the trail to see how far we would get. We were totally unprepared to actually hike. We were all wearing flip-flops, except Lilia who was wearing sort of hiking shoes. With each experienced hiker that passed us I felt like such an idiot. That feeling heightened at we saw at least a dozen rescue workers making their way up to help someone who was injured. Luckily it was never us.
The kids loved it though! What I love this picture is that it totally captures the energy the kids had. They were so excited about the hike, they just wanted to keep going. They were running at times and jumping over rocks. After dinner hikes might be the best time to go???
Even on the way down Alex asked, "Next time can we go to the top?"

This is as far as we thought we should go. Beautiful scenery!

As we were driving out of the canyon we saw these guys on paddle boards going down the river. Dave pulled over so I could get a picture and I took a quick video too. It was so awesome. This is definitely a sport I could see myself doing!