rampart range rocks
a few weeks ago, i got a small crew of adventurers together for some exploring. a few of them i'd met through instagram but never met in person before, like brandon, taylor, & kelly... others were friends i'd known for a while, like my adventuring partner-in-crime charlotte, & my buddy levi. we met up at a park in lakewood, piled into 2 vehicles, & set out for a spot about an hour away in sedalia about which my friend & co-worker luke had told me.
because of the recent snowfall there, we had to park sooner than we anticipated & hike in quite a bit. but when you have a down-for-anything crew like we did, 'adapt' is the name of the game. lil unforseen changes like that also allow for time to get to know each other better, & conversation freely flowed in groups of 2s & 3s as we hiked. let's be real: sometimes you take the risk of people not opening up or just being straight up duds when you get a crew of people who don't know each other together in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service for a few hours. could you imagine? gah. but, thankfully, this group was dud-free, & i knew it was gonna be a good day.
we came up to some giant rocks that we at first thought was our destination, but they just weren't enough for us to believe that was all we drove all the way out to sedalia for. eventually we realized that in order to get to where we thought our destination rocks were, we'd have to hike through knee-deep snow. no, really. it was knee-deep, & we hiked for what we all agree was at least 2 miles rountrip. in knee-deep snow. my leg workout for the week was set. also, did i mention kelly & taylor were wearing ankle-baring converse sneakers? mmhm, they're absolute champs. & neither complained once. feel free to kindly shove that in your whining friends' faces next time you bring them on a long or tough hike with you. even if they don't know my friends kelly & taylor. just.. tell them this story. =) maybe it'll do the trick. i digress.
the crazy hike was worth it, and we eventually came up to this huge cluster of rocks frosted with deceivingly-deep snow. once we were up on some rocks, it was a lil wild stepping on the snow at some points because we were never 100% sure if it was rock under the snow or a gap between rocks with some snow built up in it. it was a lil scary & exciting at times. we had to either crawl underneath lil caves in the rocks or jump over gaping divides in the rocks. & in case you were wondering, why yes ~ i'm gonna give this crew props again, because thankfully we had a great group of encouraging people that made even the risky parts of it fun.
the view from atop the rocks was absolutely stunning. we sat laughing & chatting for a while in the sun thawing out, particularly those of us who championed in low sneaks. shoes may have been removed & socks may have been laid out on the rocks to dry.
eventually we wandered over to a couple little buildings that were my favorite color & took some fun portraits of each other, played with confetti for a project charlotte was working on, layed in the snow, threw snow at taylor, counted about 79 spider (or were they wasps?) nests towards the roof of one of the buildings, & decided to head back. more snow was thrown at taylor, but he literally asked for it. you should see the lil video he made of our day!
we grabbed some food on the way home -- because i dunno about you, but adventuring usually works up my appetite -- & parted ways, donned with the day's awesome memories, plethora of inside jokes, & many visual reminders in our camera rolls of the fun we had. looking forward to the next time i get to hang with these folks.
what about you? grab some friends this week & go check out somewhere new!