rafting and snow

Our friend, James, owns a raft and invited us to join him on the river. We agreed (I enthusiastically agreed while Kyle very hesitantly agreed). When we announced to some friends last week that we were planning to go rafting on Friday, this was their response, "Friday? As in the day it's supposed to snow, Friday?"

I calmly replied, "Well, snow is only forecasted for above 10,000 feet and is expected on the Continental Divide and east of the divide. We're going to be south, west, and at lower elevation than here. I think we'll be fine."

Friday came and it was chilly. But we knew it would get warmer as we got closer to Buena Vista. We were partially right. We got set up to go and I had a great time! Kyle was a bit unsettled in the raft, especially because Larry and Burns, who were sitting in the front of the raft, were not the best at following directions... We laughed a lot, paddled hard when we were told to, got wet from our waists down, and saw the sun peek out a little during the last half of the trip. Rafting is something I've wanted to do ever since I've lived here and this was the first time I've gone. I'm very happy we went through with it, even if it wasn't the warmest day ever.

Here's a staged picture of us after we were done. (There was no way Kyle was bringing his camera on the river!)
I didn't feel cold until we were off the river. It was then that I realized my toes were white. But, we got changed into dry, warm clothes and went to a cafe in town to warm up with some coffee. It was in the cafe that we found the national weather forecast on the back page of a newspaper someone else had left behind.

Hmmm. Can you find the only blue spot on the map of the entire country? (Blue indicates temperatures in the 40s.) Oh, that's right! The blue spot is right by us! Please note that the only other blue spot is in northern Alaska!! Luckily (I guess) for us, we were rafting where the map is green in Colorado. That meant temps in the 50s. It wouldn't be long until we saw what kind of weather that blue dot brought, though. All day Saturday it poured down rain. At higher elevation, around 10,000 feet (please note that I live at just above 9,000 feet), it wasn't raining. It was snowing. Hard. Here are pictures from when it cleared up enough that you could actually see the mountain peaks. Incredible.

These pictures were taken on August 16th, people! Can you believe it? I'm happy to report that one week later, all of that snow has now melted. We're back to summer.