Summit Life: Fun-filled day

Uncle Bryan invited us to join him on Shadow Mountain and Grand Lake for the day.

A prefect fall day.

It was fun to see different mountains.

Checking out the view.

Of course we did some exploring on and around an island.

Who says you can't rock climb in flip flops?

A day on the lake would not be complete without a little fishing.

Shadow Mountain

Cheesing it up.

The Rocky Mountain National Park West entrance is close to Shadow Mountain Lake, so after we got off the lake we thought it would be fun to drive into the park.

About 2 miles into the park, we spotted this fire burning not too far off the road.

We drove right by, then both Troy and I decided that something was not right about the fire so we turned around and went back. As we got there another car had just pulled off and called to report the fire.

We watched the fire spread quickly through all the dry brush.

It was crazy being so close. We could hear the roar, smell the smoke and feel the heat.

Winds were blowing across the field then suddenly changed and the fire began to come in our direction.

We watched as tree after tree was there one minute....................

And gone the next.

It seemed like it took forever for the fire department to arrive.

And the line of fire kept getting bigger and bigger.

These pictures don't do the strength of fire justice. It was an intense feeling, watching our National forest burn. I do understand that fire is a part of nature and helps with regrowth but we couldn't help but think of all the pine beetle kill and how quickly fires get out of control.

Time to get out of this fire's way.

As I said watching a forest fire burn is an intense feeling and as we hustled (not that we had the kids in any danger at any point) to get into the car and move away, it all took a tole on Lexi and she was upset for a little bit. She did calm down quickly and we were able to talk about fires, how they start, why they spread, the good things they do (reseeding) and how thankful we are for all those men and women who risk their lives fighting fires.

Here you can see the fire right up to the road.

The fire did end up jumping the road by where we had initially stopped to watch. As we drove away, we saw a fire truck in the road with flames on both sides.

We drove a few miles away and found a side road which we went down to watch. We thought a slurry bomber might come in and make a drop. At Jeremiah's suggestion we turned on the scanner on Troy's phone and heard a slurry plane be called in.

We watched the spotter plane fly around as the moon came over the mountain but then they came and evacuated the area we were in.