My Belief Can Beat Up Your Belief
Why are we so desperate to be "right" about the choices we have made?
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The Front Range
You're looking at a piece of Rocky Mountain National Park that includes (L to R) Otis Peak (12,486), Hallett Peak (12,720), and Flattop Mountain (12,324). This is my personal favorite vista of all time, awe-inspring and fraught with memories and emotion. I have been visiting Estes Park and the RMNP since I was a wee bairn, and have had some really great times in and around these mountains.
Particularly, those mountains were the setting for a memorable family hike in 2004 which covered over ten miles of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, an elevation gain of over 3200 feet, and a slide down Andrew's Glacier that was described later as either fun or terrifying or a little of both depending on who you heard from.
This picture makes me happy.
Estes Cone
That stump of a rock in the right foreground is actually Estes Cone (11,002), a mountain in its own right that was the setting for a memorable hike in 1994 with some family members and some church friends. (Note to self: If you're eating lunch on a summit and you can see the house you're staying in across the valley on the side of another mountain, don't start walking straight towards the house. It's farther away than it looks.)
Twin Sisters
The photographer for this shot is sitting on the summit of West Twin Sisters Peak (11,413); the East Twin Sisters Peak (11,428) is behind him. The Twin Sisters trail is pretty much my favorite all-time hike—I've been up there four times, maybe five. Beautiful vistas both east and west, a pleasant trail (just over seven miles, about 2400' of elevation gain), it never disappoints.
To get a little perspective: That rock that is Estes Cone is about 400' lower than Twin Sisters, or about a 40-story building's worth. Those peaks across the valley are right at about 1000' higher than Twin Sisters, or about a 100-story building's worth. There's something about being on top of a mountain....
