It's been a while since we've gotten out and hiked because of all the fires. We knew we needed to get out and enjoy the mountains while there was no smoke and before it starts getting too cold. We headed to Boulder because it's a location that wasn't too far away and also not currently on fire. Because of the fires, our options for hiking are pretty limited. It seems like most of the fires have almost died out or slowed enough that they're not a major thread to rapidly spread, but there's a lot of damage that's either blocking road access to get to hiking trails or the fire went through hiking trails and isn't safe to hike yet.

Shanahan Ridge was a great trail to come back to hiking. It was under 4 and a half miles and less than 1,000 feet of elevation gain. Just like all the trails in Boulder, there were many options that would allow us to go more or less distance, but we set out to do the entire 4 miles hike and completed all of it, but nothing extra.

We needed to head up to Longmont to pick up some pottery from Crackpots that we painted the week before, so we also decided to get outside and enjoy the weather before it starts getting too cold. We picked McIntosh Lake because it was a pretty lengthy walk - 3 and a half miles - so it was enough that we could say we did something active, but had almost no elevation gain (so it truly was just a hike).

We set up the Christmas tree today and just like last year, the cats were really excited about it. they haven't ever been successful in eating one of the lights we put on the tree or knocking down the tree completely, that didn't stop them from immediately trying to once we got the tree up. Since I haven't posted any photos of the cats on my blog, I figured I could do a small photoshoot of the 3 creatures that torment Katie and me every day by demanding food and love.

Most of the photos of Flynn and Thor were done using a small set of lights that I used to entice them. Crimson wasn't all that interested in that, so I had to do a special setup for him while it was breakfast time to get him in the position that I wanted him in. Crimson is by far the hardest cat to position, and since he's a black cat, he's also the hardest to photograph because it requires very specific lighting to actually get him properly lit compared to the background. But eventually, I got a few photos of him, although not as good as the photos of the other two.

I really wanted to get photos of all three of them together, although I knew that was unrealistic since Crimson and Thor hate each other. I figured I'd at least get Flynn and Thor together though. I don't have great lighting equipment, so I was holding a light which made me have to stay pretty close to my subject. And because of (lack of) overall lighting, I was using a 50mm prime lens which meant I was already zoomed in a little more than I would have liked. Both of those things, bad lighting and my lens choice, didn't really allow for shooting multiple cats at once. Oh well, maybe next year I'll get a better lighting setup and get photos of them together.