Phil and Ted's marvelous adventure

Saturday, April 19 While visiting in Colorado on a program review visit to Metropolitan State College of Denver, Phil and his brother Ted made a trip up to the Rocky Mountain National Park for a snow-shoeing trek. It was a warm and sunny day, perhaps reaching 80 degrees F in Loveland, but ever vigilant for warmth, Ted and Phil dressed warmly for their adventure. We reached the Bear Lake parking lot at about 10 am and set off for the chain of lakes above Bear.

Walking in snow-shoes wasn't difficult. They gripped the snow and supported our weight well (no mean feat.) Our first stop was above Nymph Lake where we met another hiker who took our picture. Strangely enough, we also came across another hiker who looked exactly like Ted, so we took a photo of the two of them.

We gained about 600 ft. altitude overall on our hike and the altitude was enough to force us to hike slowly. Our next stop was at Dream Lake where we got some nice views of Hallet's Peak.

We then moved on to our final destination, Emerald Lake at an altitude of just under 10,000 feet. The climb was kind of difficult for this flat-lander, but we made it. Here is Phil struggling up the slope, but the final view was worth the trouble.

After descending, we drove down through Moraine park where we saw many elk.

We finished our drive through the park by driving to an overlook over the valley where we had a view of the front range.

We returned to Ted and Marty's house for dinner. I spent Sunday afternoon working with Gene Allgower and a student Arta and then went to dinner with Gene, his wife Sue, and friend Anna Georg. It was great to renew acquaintances with all of them.

Monday and Tuesday were spent in Denver meeting with Mathematics Department students, faculty, and administrators as I did a review of the math program at Metro State College. While there, I stayed with Clara Morris and John Goodrick. They had spent two years as Peace Corps volunteers in Moldavia and John had worked in Slovakia as well, so I learned a lot about these Eastern European countries.