I am continuing my series of posts to celebrate my one year anniversary of living in Colorado by sharing some of the natural geologic beauty I’ve witnessed over the past year as I explore Colorado. Here is the link to the first post in this series if you missed it – And on the 8th Day…Part I. This post also explains the title of this series of posts.

I meant to continue this series yesterday, on April 19th the actual anniversary, but I got distracted by the endless trimming of half square triangles (No Scrap Left Behind (half square triangle craziness)), so I have a good excuse. No worries (in case you’ve been losing sleep wondering how I am progressing on my latest scrappy quilt) I will update you on this piece in a future post, but for now here is a photo of my growing piles of trimmed half square triangles:

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Eldorado Canyon State Park

Eldorado Canyon State Park is one of those hidden gems in Colorado that no one talks about except the native/locals. Luckily my partner John is a Colorado native and knows all the great places to hike. We spent the day there with Mike our miniature schnauzer in September 2019.

Here is the description of this spectacular park from the Colorado State Park’s website:

Eldorado Canyon is a hidden treasure right in Boulder’s backyard!  Whether it’s hiking amidst the towering sandstone cliffs, picnicking along scenic South Boulder Creek or climbing Eldo’s sheer golden walls, Eldorado Canyon State Park truly has something for everyone!  Discover this hidden jewel and take home memories that will last a lifetime.

Well, like the description above says, I did “take home memories that will last a lifetime” and I took WAY TOO MANY photos!

In preparing for this post, I poured over hundreds of photos from my visit to decide which ones to share. I am only going to share my absolute favorites (smile).

In the Rapids

One of my favorite memories of the day is climbing out to the rocks in the middle of river (or creek?) that runs through the park and being in the middle of the rapids (well it was not that turbulent) and having a little picnic.

My partner John, who took the photos, had to precariously hand me Mike once I got myself safely positions on the rocks in the middle of the water.

My favorite photo from this moment is selfie I took of Mike and I where it looks like Mike is saying: “My human is kind of crazy for bringing me out to this rock in the middle of rapidly moving water!”

Wandering About the Canyon

I only had to select from 20+ photos to provide those photos above. I won’t tell you the obscene amount of photos I had to select from for these next set of photos. Everything was so beautiful and awe-inspiring as we hiked about the canyon.

Here are some of my favorite photos (because I do not want to blow out my blog page image storage allowance, ha!).

All I can say is that these images do not do the beauty of this place justice.

The sky was clear blue and although it was a Saturday in September there we not very many fellow hikers there. At times it felt like we had the whole amazing place to ourselves!

Traveling in Style

As some of the hike involved a bit of easy rock climbing to get around, we decided we would carry Mike in his backpack most of the hike for safety. Here he is traveling in style (we took turns carrying him vs. our day hike pack) and John carried him most of the time.

The Black and Whites

Of course I took B&W photos during the hike? Would you expect any less of me?!?! (If you are new to this blog you can check out my series of posts – Life in B&W).

Here are some of my favorites as I channeled my inner Ansel Adams…

And to close out this post, here is me, feeling quite happy and blessed to be a on a beautiful hike, on a beautiful day, in the beautiful state of Colorado!