Picture post

Rather than a lot of boring writing, this post will be pictures with captions.

Above: Mount Democrat, a 14er, on September 14th.



Left: Mount Cameron, a 14er, on September 14th. It was cold and windy.







Right: Long's Peak, from the summit of Mount Meeker at 13,911ft










Left: Mount of the Holy Cross.











Right: Hiking Loveland Pass

The Hunt

Skipping ahead to late October leads us to our first elk hunt in Colorado. Prospects looked good going into the hunt as several late season scouting expeditions revealed a decent amount of elk sign.

Thursday, Oct. 23rd. Arrival at hunting grounds around 7am with 3 fresh inches of snow from two nights ago. First high spot/lookout reveals no elk, although the scenery is stunning. On the right you can see the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain National Park, however; no elk are to be seen. Our hunt continues following an elk trail discovered previously. Two sets of elk beds are found with fresh tracks from that morning. The tracks go to a feeding area with plenty of droppings as well.
The rest of the day went like this, walk, look, walk, sit, and walk some more(6.5 miles total). No elk were seen.

Friday, Oct. 24th. Arrival today is earlier at 6:30 to set up on the feeding area from the previous day. Nothing doing until 10am when we decided to look for a creek that we saw on a map. Turns out the creek doesn't exist in the fall. Only activity going on is a forest service truck doing surveying on the nearby road.

Later, two animals are seen walking a LONG ways away. Hurrying to find the tracks and catch up we were disappointed to find they were only mule deer.

Sunday, Oct. 25th. Arrival today at 6am for the 1.5 mile hike to set up on the feeding area again. Nothing doing at this spot until 8:30am when a monster mule deer buck comes down the trail 60 yards away. He stops to look at us broadside for no less than 3 minutes. A nice animal, but he was able to go on his way because he wasn't an elk. 10am rolls around and it is time to spot and stalk again. Nothing doing again.
It was a fun few days, even without seeing any elk. The weather was beatiful everyday, but perhaps a little to warm as the majority of the herd hadn't yet migrated to the area. Here is one last picture of the meatless, but happy hunters on Sunday.

Visit from the Scheible's, and Jenny too

August began with a visit from Pam, Steve, Mark, and Jenny the first week of August.

On our way to staying in Breckenridge for the day we hiked from Loveland pass at 11,990ft to a point that was almost 13,000 feet. We posed for this picture with Gray's and Torrey's peaks in the background.

During our stay in Breckenridge we rafted the Arkansas River near Buena Vista with our guide Stu. Unfortunately our death defying river adventure went unphotographed. Even without pictures you should trust a good time was had by all.

One of the more popular activities in Summit county is bike riding, which of course we had to try our hand at. Instead of just riding around town we got a ride to the top of Vail pass at 10.600ft or so and rode downhill 2,000ft and 13 miles, all while hardly pedaling. On the left is a picture in Breckenridge while getting equipped with helmets and bikes. On the right is a picture of everyone at the top ready to start going down.

Copper mountain is about the half way point. Here the people with mountain bikes rode a chair lift up the mountain in hopes to descend safely via trails specifically for mountain biking. Morale was high upon the beginning of the descent as seen on the left. Later on the trail gave the rider a choice of going off of a boulder, or around the boulder. We all tried both ways, however; some riders were more successful than others in their attempts. Nobody was hurt in the photographing of these stunts....

We also tricked Pam and Steve into hiking Mount Bierstadt with us as well. The day was mostly foggy so the summit view wasn't the best, but the weather otherwise was great for hiking. As you can see from the picture there was much fog inhibiting our view. Actually the picture shows the fog at it's best throughout the day.

Mount of the Holy Cross

Brian decided to hike this mountain on the way back from Grand Junction after working for four days out there at the local Walgreens.
Getting up at 5am to hike in the dark was a first. Pitch black darkness was eluminated by an LED headlamp until about 6am or two miles up the trail. Finally breaking treeline just after sunrise the ascent of 42 switchbacks began. After the last switchback you come to the Notchtop mountain shelter, which was a tourist destination where tourists would go to look at the "Holy Cross". See the shelter on the left.

On the right you can see the cross in the mountain, which earlier in the year has more snow. The route chosen was the Halo ridge which came from the left and up the left side of Mount of the Holy Cross to 14,005ft. Coincidently, you also climbed the high point on the ridge at 13,831 to also bag a top 100 peak in Colorado.

A long day is made even longer with a 900 foot elevation gain in the last 3 miles of the hike. This bluebird Colorado day made for great pictures even at 1pm in the afternoon. One last picture from Halfmoon pass.

Finally-4th of July weekend in the San Juans

The San Juan Mountains of Colorado are in the southwest portion and are the largest mountain range in the state. A five day weekend meant we needed a long weekend to make the trip worthwhile.

We drove to Lake City and camped 13 miles up Engineer Pass near the trailhead for Redcloud/Sunshine/Handies, all of which we planned to hike in the next 2 days.

The weather was spectacular with very few clouds, no wind, and temperatures in the 60's both days. The first hike was Handies via Grizzly Gulch. We saw over 30 species of wildflowers in the two days. Lindsey's favorite is the columbine, which is the state flower. On the right is a picture of a columbine with Handies Peak in the background.

Scenery in the San Juans is very green with many flowers, and on this weekend, a lot of snow. Making the top we spoke with a few Costa Ricans and took obligatory pictures at the top. We even tried a new pose b/c it seems as though we do the same pose all the time(see left).

Day 2 was a hike up Redcloud and Sunshine, two more 14ers. We followed the route through a gulch bombarded by avalanches leaving 30 to 40 ft of snow, trees, and boulders in our way. Quite impressive how much power and avalanche has. First we came to the summit of Redcloud, defined by the reddish rock of the mountain.
Another 2 miles was required to get out to Sunshine Peak and back so Lindsey and Tucker rested on top of Redcloud while Brian went over to Sunshine. Here is a picture showing Brian with Redcloud in the background. If you look close you can see trails and maybe a person or two.

After these two days of strenuous hikes we relaxed at the campsite, had a few enjoyable beverages, and conked out because we were tired!

We packed up camp and headed into Lake City which we found out is about 70% Texans. Lunch was eaten at a Packer bar coincidently. Lake City had a huge yard/park sale to benefit their children's soccer teams so we donated a few dollars and got two books to read for the afternoon.

We decided to drive into the middle of nowhere to hike the least hiked 14er in San Luis Peak. Two and a half hours of dirt road with wood signs that one could barely read and we were there.

We pitched camp just before a windy thunderstorm with torrential rains came. Dry inside the tent we felt as though we were going to be blown away, tent and all. We survived unscathed and got a good night's sleep before waking at 5:45am to get started.

Hiking up San Luis is more like an 11 mile walk. The trail was awesome and so was the scenery. On the right is the peak we thought was San Luis, however; we still had a mile or so to go after going around this peak/mound, whatever. Lindsey led us to the top and was the first person to summit that day, hence the number 1 sign.

Done with our hiking for the weekend we headed for Gunnison where a hot tub and shower waited as well as drinks at the Gunnison brewery and dinner at an old west burger place.

Til next time....

Sherman, Quandary, Gemini, Snitkau, and "Cupid"

Two 14ers and three ranked 13ers were on the docket for our first hiking trip of the summer. Sherman and Quandary are two of the easier 14ers, thus a good breaking in for the rest of the summer. We left Friday after golfing and relaxing to set up camp at the Fourmile Creek campground west of Fairplay, CO.

We hit the trail around 8:30am and began walking up a dirt road that led to an old mining camp at about 12,300ft. On the left Lindsey is following Tucker up the trail. After reaching the mining camp in relative ease we crossed a grassy meadow up to the saddle of Sherman. A few snowfields were the only major obstacles on this route. With Tucker leading the way, because he knows he has to keep going up, we gained the summit and posed for the picture on the left.

Since it was a nice day we continued on to 13,951ft Gemini Peak. This pile of rocks was quite unworthy of a photo, but there is a picture if you click on the link to our flickr pictures.

After a relaxing afternoon in camp and a wonderful time sitting around the fire that night we awoke for the next day's task, 14,265 ft Quandary Peak. Getting another late start, 9am, we followed the masses up the east ridge to the summit. With tired legs from the day before and Quandary being much steeper, we took our time. Here Lindsey is almost to the top. Joining the masses at the top we took a well deserved break. Even Tucker took a break! And another shot from the top...

Lastly, after a shower and a huge continental breakfast from La Quinta in Silverthorne we took an easier approach to our day. We drove to Loveland Pass, 11,990ft, to hike along the continental divide. This hike which ended up being somewhat of the loop hike took us over 2 more 13ers. The views were suprisingly pretty and at the top we could see 4 ski resorts.

Here we are at the top of Mount Snitkau, left. Later we ended up hiking over to another mountain called Cupid. Here we were close to Gray's and Torrey's peaks which we hiked last labor day. They are in the background of the picture on the right.

Soon after that picture we heard thunder. We got to the car as soon as we could because with thunder comes lightning and with no trees around we were the highest objects.

All in all a good weekend!

Crosier Mtn x 2, hail, and tornadoes

It's been a while since we've updated the blog, although there have been plenty of things going on out here in Windsor, CO. And before our first significant hiking excursion of the year these events need to be posted.
Crosier mountain was hiked twice, each time from a different trailhead so the scenery was different. Here are is a picture from the top.

Most significantly Windsor experienced an F3 tornado on May 22nd. Our house suffered relatively little damage compared to houses just a half mile away that were completely destroyed. Most of the damage at our house was due to hail ranging in size from golf ball to baseball size that lasted nearly 30 minutes before the tornado went through. Even a month later we still have divots in the yard from the hail. On the right is a picture just as the wind was picking up.

And some video of the hail, before the window broke and it wasn't fun to watch anymore.

A

few more pictures from after the storm. Tucker loved the new lake in the street.

Left : Driving to work. Some of the biggest trees in Windsor were felled, some of which were almost a 100 years old.

Check back soon as we're headed to the mountains for some camping and hiking this weekend!