ordained minister Central Park

Colorado Elopement Wedding Hikes: Nymph Lake, Lake Haiyaha Loop via Fire Trail (RMNP)

Living in Denver, offers many perks, including beautiful hiking trails for a Colorado elopement wedding nearby. On the other hand, hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park are about two hours away and require advancing planning (e.g., day or annual pass and a timed entry reservation). The drive and extra efforts are certainly worth it, though! The hikes give you access to some of the most beautiful landscapes in Colorado. Here’s the first of a series of Rocky Mountain National Park hikes that I’ve recently recommended to my wedding couples in Colorado as options for a wedding ceremony elopement. I’ve included a review from a past visit and my notes.

Sometimes the most secluded, off-the-beaten path, locations provide the most ideal scenery for an elopement wedding in Colorado.

 

Time of Year: Late June.

Weather: 55 degrees and sunny at 9:48 am, cloud cover for most of the hike until 1:15.

Cover: 75% covered.

Time: 9:48 am - 1:15 pm.

Distance: 5.5 Miles total (Loop: Nymph Lake Trail to Haiyaha Cutoff Trail (out and back to Lake Haiyaha) to Fire Trail to Glaciar Gorge Trail to the Bear Lake parking lot.

Traffic: High until we reached Lake Haiyaha (low).

Parking: Tons of parking....but no spots (except 1 lucky spot that opened). The shuttle halfway may be the only option (there were lines by 9:15).

Equipment: Hiking boots.

Terrain: Well-marked trail with plenty of rocks to step on and plenty of beautiful views until Lake Haiyaha. We didn't take the turnoff to Dream Lake. Big boulders to climb around Lake Haiyaha. Mostly a covered decline from there via Fire Trail.

Difficulty: Moderate (decent cardio baseline for the initial incline to 10k).

Colorado Wedding Officiant Notes: Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) offers many scenic backdrops for a Colorado Wedding Elopement. Many of the most beautiful trails begin in the Bear Lake parking lot and lead you to incredible lakes, including Dream Lake. While these trails tend to be very popular during the summer, they can also lead you to quiet spots like Lake Haiyaha. My photos of the varying landscapes at 10,000 feet and above took place on a wet and foggy day. Nevertheless, the weather provided a mystic serenity often lost in a bright landscape. For clear views and sun, hikes in RMNP before 11 am is most ideal during the summer. Typically, clouds and rain permeate the sky daily from 11 am until 3/4 pm. In the fall, the incredible colors of the trees might provide the painted landscape you’re looking for, but remember that Trail Ridge Road (the road through RMNP) may be closed because of winter conditions at higher elevations. Assume that you won’t have access to the road from late fall until mid to late spring.

Rocky Mountain National Park offers endless options for elopement ceremonies. Timing of the year is important and a pass and reservation is required, though.

Lake Haiyaha offers an incredible setting on a sunny and foggy day for a wedding ceremony.

Once you climb above 10,000 feet in RMNP, your Colorado elopement wedding ceremony will have a scenic backdrop unmatched.

Colorado Elopement Hikes near Denver: North Table Mountain West Loop (Golden)

Living in Denver, Colorado, offers many perks, including beautiful hiking trails for an elopement within 18-30 minutes. Here’s the first of a series of Golden hikes that I’ve recently recommended to my wedding couples in Colorado as options for a wedding ceremony elopement. I’ve included a review from a past visit and my notes.

North Table Mountain is the high plains of the high plains in Golden, Colorado

 

Date: February 5th.

Weather: 33 degrees and sunny at 9:14 am.

Cover: Completely exposed (more ideal for winter and early spring because of the sun).

Time: 9:14 am - 11:47 am.

Distance: 6 Miles total (West trailhead parking lot to Lichen Peak to the east side of the mountain and looping north and then west back to the lot).

Traffic: Low (normally high).

Parking: Several spots available.

Equipment: Hiking boots and microspikes.

Terrain: Definitely a quick climb up from the lot but flat once you reach the peak. Faced 12-20 mph winds on my back until I reached the east side and began looping north/northwest. At that point, I was walking against a not-so-kind wall of wind. Beautiful views of neighboring mountains and Golden. It’s a well-marked snow-covered path, but I could see it being muddy during the late spring.

Difficulty: Easy but the initial walk up may require a cardio baseline.

Colorado Wedding Officiant Notes: While my visit was in the winter, the trail provided a snow-dusted landscape that framed every step. Considering that the mountain is shaped like a table, wedding couples have endless options for a scenic backdrop of the mountains in the west or Golden and Denver in the east. Wind is certainly a factor at times and should be part of the consideration for the elopement. Late winter and early spring will provide hard ground without mud but may require microspikes for traction in snow. Late spring and summer will offer a dry path and quite a bit of sun exposure. An early morning hike is recommended for cooler temperatures. The fall is a perfect season with moderate temperatures and stunning views of changing leaves.

Many locations on North Table Mountain offer stunning views of Golden and Denver.

When it isn’t windy, the rock cliff and the views of Golden can provide a perfect backdrop for an elopement wedding in Colorado.

The west side of Table Mountain provides a private perspective between the mountain and its sisters across the road.

#35 - Designing Your New Work Life | Dave Evans

#35 - Designing Your New Work Life | Dave Evans

Welcome to “The Elements of Being” podcast, where I dissect and explore the minds and habits of psychologists, filmmakers, writers, and industry icons. Essentially, we examine the mental and emotional narratives and processes that steer the social stream of consciousness….Truly a chance to geek out over the psychology behind human behavior. Each episode is a glimpse into the trends and patterns of human behavior and the underlying influences that navigate us into different directions. Whether we primarily focus on nutrition or the unconscious, guests share insights, thought-provoking lessons, the nuances of creativity, and the elements of being….us.

Today, I'd like to introduce you to Dave Evans, the Codirector of the Stanford Life Design Lab and a co-founder of Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest interactive entertainment companies. He also led the design of Apple's first mouse and laser printer and has a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford.

Recently, Dave and his colleague, Bill Burnett, coauthored the #1 New York Times bestseller Designing Your New Work Life....and it served as the foundation of our conversation. It's a job-changing, outlook-changing, life-changing book that shows us how to transform our new uncharted work lives and create a meaningful dream job. With new insights on making our way through disruption- large and small, personal or global-the book helps us navigate during these times of fear and anxiety about the unknown and through our post-COVID work lives and beyond.

Specifically, we discuss their Disruption Design with a focus on curiosity, reframing, radical collaboration, awareness, bias to action, and storytelling. We also learn how to make possibilities available even when our lives have been disrupted, examine the tools to enjoy the moment, and begin to prototype our future.

___________________________

To learn more about Dave Evans and his new book, visit https://designingyour.life.

The Elements of Being Podcast with Michael Moody featuring Dave Evans

#35 - Designing Your New Work Life | Dave Evans
The Elements of Being Podcast with MIchael Moody
Download

In this episode, we specifically discussed:


-How to redesign our professional lives with unknown disruptions in mind when we've already invested in a specific path.
-How to break the chain of working endlessly without satisfaction and "doing whatever it takes" modeled by our parents and society.
-How to approach the dilemma of serving life of purpose for less pay or settling for a higher wage at a less satisfying job.
-Design thinking and the benefit of applying this mode of thinking to our professional lives.
-The importance of curiosity in our professional lives.
-Prototyping new positions and experiences while serving a current position.
-How we can reframe our current position to change our work experience or career trajectory.
-A distinction between reframing and renaming our work experiences.
-The benefits of radical collaboration.
-The foundation of great storytelling.
-The best exit strategies.

Listen to all episodes on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castbox, Stitcher, or on your favorite podcast platform!

My Favorite James Clear Quotes and Thoughts (Set 1)

Each week I share a bit of wisdom from author James Clear with my personal training clients in Denver. His book Atomic Habits has inspired many optimal health seekers to create a new routine. While change may be challenging, the right mindset and series of habits can lead to a lifetime of joy, physical prowess and comfort, and less pain. If you like my selections, definitely signup for Clear’s weekly newsletters for more tidbits!

Find new inspiration with a Denver personal trainer. / Photo: Eberhard Grossgasteiger

Favorite Quotes (and Thoughts) from James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits

 

  • "The more you invest yourself in fulfilling work, the more your effort fuels you. The harder you work on a bad project or in an unsatisfying role, the more of a grind it becomes."

  • “Life is a series of tradeoffs, and greater results usually require greater tradeoffs. The question is not, "Do you want to be great at this?" The question is, "What are you willing to give up in order to be great at this?"

  • Meditation teacher, Light Watkins, on acting your age: "The advice shouldn't be to act your age. It should be to act your spirit. Your age may try to prohibit you from dancing like that, or starting over, or trying something new. But your spirit would never do such a thing. If something feels aligned, your spirit wants you to go for it, whether you're 15 or 85. Acting your age makes you fit in more, while acting your spirit will indeed cause you to stand out—in a bad way to people who act their age, but in an inspiring way to those who act their spirit. Try acting your spirit from time to time, and you can see for yourself which path makes you feel more alive." Source: Newsletter by Light Watkins. (Hat tip to Wes Claytor)

  • "Question: “Who (or what) do you need to forgive, so you can move on and live well?”

  • "It's only work if you would rather be doing something else. Find a way to carve a career out of what you already want to do."

  • “Build small habits. Make big plans. 1) Keep your daily actions small. Strive to get 1% better every day. 2) Keep your daily mindset big. Think about how you can play a bigger game. Start small, but never dream small."

  • Painter Mariam Paré, who specializes in making paintings by mouth after suffering a spinal cord injury, offers some advice to her younger self: "If I could talk to myself twenty years ago, I would tell myself to focus on my strengths, and not on my weaknesses; on the things I could do and not the things I couldn’t do; to strive to excel and hone those skills to the point of excellence. That this was the best strategy to secure my future. I would say to myself that the only real obstacles you have are those you create for yourself."

  • "If an idea is true, criticism will not destroy it, but strengthen it."

  • Interior designer Danielle Colding on the ultimate luxury: "Quality of life is having the freedom to make choices that are not fear based. Whether it’s the ability to choose the kinds of projects I want to take on and can learn from, or the ability to take a month off to travel. Freedom to choose is the ultimate luxury."

  • Question: “What is an area you'd like to improve over the next decade? How are you working toward that outcome today? Think long-term. Act short-term.”

  • "When researching strategies, emphasize patterns over stories. One person succeeding means nothing. 100 people succeeding is a signal. When explaining strategies, emphasize stories over patterns. People forget numbers and charts. Everyone remembers a great story."

  • "When determining the size or complexity of a new habit ask yourself, "What can I stick to—even on my worst day?" Start there. Master the art of showing up. Then advance."

  • Poet Jenny Xie on how reading is a form of travel: "Reading is migratory, an act of transport, from one life to another, one mind to another. Just like geographic travel, reading involves estrangement that comes with the process of dislocating from a familiar context. I gather energy from this kind of movement, this estranging and unsettling, and I welcome it precisely because it’s conducive to examination, interrogation, reordering. Travel, imaginative or physical, can sharpen perception and force a measuring of distance and difference." Source: The Self Is a Fiction

#34 - The Lens of a Positive Psychologist During a Crisis | Dr. Itai Ivtzan

#34 - The Lens of a Positive Psychologist During a Crisis | Dr. Itai Ivtzan

Welcome to “The Elements of Being” podcast, where I dissect and explore the minds and habits of psychologists, filmmakers, writers, and industry icons. Essentially, we examine the mental and emotional narratives and processes that steer the social stream of consciousness….Truly a chance to geek out over the psychology behind human behavior. Each episode is a glimpse into the trends and patterns of human behavior and the underlying influences that navigate us into different directions. Whether we primarily focus on nutrition or the unconscious, guests share insights, thought-provoking lessons, the nuances of creativity, and the elements of being….us.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Itai Ivtzan, a positive psychologist, a Professor at Naropa University, and the School of Positive Transformation Director. Over the past 20 years, he has run seminars, lectures, workshops, and retreats in the USA, UK, and worldwide at various educational institutions and private events. In addition, Dr. Itzvan is a regular keynote speaker at conferences and has published five books and more than 50 journal papers and book chapters. His main areas of research and teaching are positive psychology, mindfulness, and spirituality.

Accordingly, Dr. Itzvan has invested much time in studying mindfulness academically, writing books about it, teaching it, and training mindfulness teachers. As part of his work, he established the School of Positive Transformation, offering practical well-being courses for practitioners, teaching them how to transform themselves and their clients and students.

___________________________

To learn more about Dr. Itai Ivtzan, visit https://schoolofpositivetransformation.com.

The Elements of Being Podcast with Michael Moody featuring Dr. Itai Ivtzan

#34 - The Lens of a Positive Psychologist During a Crisis | Dr. Itai Ivtzan
The Elements of Being Podcast with MIchael Moody
Download

In our interview, we examine the lens of a positive psychologist during a period of crisis. Dr. Ivtzan shared his personal struggles during the onset of the pandemic, and we discussed how to practice empathy when in conflict with family and friends and compassion for loved ones who hurt us. We also dive into the meaning we assign to such disruptions like the recent pandemic and destructive wildfires in Colorado, as well as the role of meditation and mindfulness in our well-being.

In this episode, we specifically discussed:

-The lens of a positive psychologist during a crisis.
-Making sense of crisis.
-Sitting with ourselves when our physical states are threatened.
-The dialogue regarding collective trauma in the positive psychology community.
-Feeling compassion for others when we've been hurt by even those who love us.
-Practicing empathy when experiencing fiery divisions between family, friends, and people we don't know.
-The role of mindfulness in building resiliency.
-The reasons why solitude is vital to our mindfulness.

Listen to all episodes on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castbox, Stitcher, or on your favorite podcast platform!