How We Met
We met during a student council meeting in college. Zach was late to a meeting and the only open seat was next to me. After the meeting I offered to give him a ride back to his residence hall since it was raining. We started hanging out and spending time together and continued to text, call, and video chat the following semester while I studied abroad. We decided to start dating when I returned.
How they asked
A friend lent us their house in Breckenridge for the weekend. I thought it was going to be a nice weekend away. We drove up Friday after work and planned to rent mountain bikes on Saturday, and a hike on Sunday (the first hike we did after moving to Colorado). It was my first time mountain biking, Zach was nervous I would hate it but didn’t tell me. I had so much fun! We both took a few spills, nothing major, but Zach bruised his hip and wasn’t sure if he would be able to do the hike on Sunday. I suggested we do something else (because I had no idea what the plan was) but he insisted we hike Mt. Quandary. Mt. Quandary is the highest summit of the Tenmile Range in Colorado at 14,265 ft. I’m not sure why we thought this was a fun thing to do days after moving to Colorado, but we did and now it’s a funny story.
We start the hike and the weather is kind of iffy. Cloudy, chilly, wet, and the potential for storms with no warning at that altitude is very high, this was mid-June and it was about 40 degrees. We got about 2/3 of the way up (Zach planned to propose at the summit) and the clouds rolled in so thick we couldn’t see more than 10 ft in front of us. We decided to call it but Zach insisted we do this other hike, Mohawk Lake, and I said sure.We drove to the trail head, thunder in the distance, and began the hike. It was beautiful! Old mine shafts and equipment, waterfalls, summiting in a valley with a lake with a gorgeous view.
While I wandered around taking pictures, Zach nervously waited for someone else to come down the trail. He suggested we take a picture and after a few cute shots he turned me towards him and got down on one knee.I was speechless! We talked about it but I had no idea that he had planned to do it that weekend. To be fair, I’m usually pretty oblivious. After I figured out how to speak, I said yes, and started shaking from excitement. Thunder rumbled in the background as we started the hike back. About 5 minutes later it started to pour, and then hail, as we ran back to the car. All of our hikes are memorable from inclement weather, getting lost, or not bringing enough food, and this one is the best of all.
