Our Mountain Goats

Just in case any of you noticed Nicolas was not in the birthday party pictures, that would be because he took it as his cue to get the hell out of Dodge - I mean, took advantage of the amazing autumn to go climbing with his girls. They called at 9:15am Saturday morning from the summit of their second mountain. This being seven hours after I got home from next door, the same level of activity could not be said of me.

That summit marked Cayenne's 27th Fourteener, and Acacia's 23rd. Nick spent some great hiking time with the girls this summer, but if I'd posted about every climb, all my posts would've looked the same. I'm very proud of them though, so if you'll indulge me for a bit here, I'd like to share some of it with you:

Cayenne on the Spiller-Babcock Ridge, June 9, 2012

Acacia and I on Sneffels, June 15th, 2012

The girls and I popped up to Engineer on July 6th (just down the road from Durango)

The flowers on Engineer were gorgeous

 Acacia on East Babcock, July 12, 2012

While Acacia was on a road trip with her grandparents to visit her cousins in California, Cayenne and Nicolas spent a long weekend camping, and climbed four 14ers: Yale, Shavano, Tabeguache and Antero.

She said they were Easy Peasy. :) Good father-daughter time.

July 31-August 1 they climbed Snowmass and Castle.

I love this shot

The Red Rover enjoyed this summer

Although it looks like she's peeing, Acacia is actually unloading her latest rock collection.

Kind of ethereal with the sun rising behind them.

They also climbed Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Democrat, Lincoln and Bross.

On the most recent one they were reminded that the climbing season was probably nearly done. And while I'm sure someday they'll look back on their adventures in the mountains as some of their most indelible, my guess is they welcomed the snow.