Off to college he goes

It has been a big week. We had been building up to this day all summer. On Tuesday, we drove Jude to college in Boulder. He is officially a freshman living in the Farrand Hall dorm at CU. It was a bittersweet day. We still find it hard to believe that the boy we had nurtured all this time is now a young man, starting a new stage of his adult life.

In his new dorm with Anna

One of the good things about having Jude so close is that we are able to visit quite easily. He said he wanted his bike and a few other items so when Marcy and I had a Ridhwan meeting in Boulder we suggested we grab some dinner and deliver his items to him. It was good to see him, even thought it had only been five days.

He is adjusting to college life and enjoying it so far. He was very tired when we saw him today, having stayed up “very late” on Saturday night and he didn’t get up until 11am. His classes are going well, he is enjoying all the freshman activities and meeting new people, as well as hanging out with some of his friends from South. He likes his new roommate which is good.

Anna goes off to school as a junior

Of course, this week wasn’t all about Jude. Anna started her junior year at South. Although she is only taking one class at South High School this semester, her other classes are all college classes at the Community College of Denver where she is working towards her associates degree in criminology.

Jude and I on the summit of Mt Lincoln at 8:30am

Jude and I started doing 14ers when he was eight years old, so this year marks the eleventh annual hike. We decided to do the famed DeCaLiBron hike. It is called that because you summit Mt Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln and Bross all in one loop hike.

While that sounds incredibly challenging, it is actually one of the easier 14er hikes. This is because you start above 12,000 feet in elevation and the hike itself is only 7.5 miles long, as the 14ers are all close together.

This trailhead is hard to get to in a regular car and since we no longer have the Explorer, we decided to rent an SUV on Turo. This way we could drive to the trailhead on Friday night and then we could sleep in the car and be on the trail early on Saturday.

We hit the trail just after 6am and we made our first summit, Mt Bross, before 7:30am. It was an easy hike over to Mt Lincoln, an even easier hike up Mt Cameron but Mt Democrat was challenging. The last half mile is steep and very rocky. Then we got to the summit around 10:15am, it started raining, which soon turned to snow. Needless to say, we did not linger at the summit.

It had just started snowing on the summit of Mt Democrat

By the time we got back to the main loop trail the sun was out and it was warmer. We made it back to the car before noon and we both tired but in good shape.