Category Archives: Elk Range

Sleeping Sexton and its Northern Neighbors

Ben July 13, 2016 10 Comments

On Sunday Steve and I tied together a nice run of peaks starting with the Sleeping Sexton north of the Bells and ending with the unnamed duo northwest of Willow Lake. True to form, it was a long and somewhat tedious linkup, but a nice way to take advantage of a picture perfect weather day in the Elks. This area of the range offers up several long ridge runs, including the Bells traverse and Len Shoemaker to Pyramid. While not nearly as cool or grand as its big brothers, this Sexton linkup was a nice way of combining some lesser-climbed Elk 13ers from Maroon Lake. Keep reading…

Elk Hunting at Church

David Yarian May 25, 2016 19 Comments

The Elks are the sort of mountains that must have inspired early mountaineers. Man has always had a need to get to the top of things, but the Elks are one of those places where you look up and can’t help but feel the call of the hills. For those early explorers venturing into the heart of Colorado, I imagine they saw the iconic peaks here and were inspired. Keep Reading…

The Four Pass Loop Through 8-Year Old Eyes

Scot Osborne July 26, 2015 17 Comments

I know I say I’m proud of my little girl often, but I’m going to keep saying it. Every year, we look forward to our annual mountain excursion that we’ve shared since she was 2 (with the exception of when she was 3 because that was the summer her little sister was born). Our adventures are normally 2 nights out but she’s been begging for a longer trip ever since my last week-long outing 3 years ago. I told her this was the year and after our hike up West Maroon during our family’s car-camping trip to Gothic last summer to see the wild flowers, I knew what our destination would be. Read more…

Capitol Punishment

Rick Thompson July 19, 2015 14 Comments

We bring it on ourselves. Primarily resulting from the activities we partake in and the way we go about pursuing those activities. The idea was simple. Climb capitol in a day from the car going as light and fast as possible. Now I’m not talking Andrew Hamilton fast, but deliberate fast. At the last “first Friday” block party in Golden I mentioned this idea to Carl and he agreed it sounded like a fun day. The last time he climbed capitol without skis was like 8 years ago and he wanted to revisit the peak, he was in. We chose a couple weekends with some weather flexibility and a plan was set. Keep reading…