Fall has officially arrived in the Colorado high country. Days are getting noticeably shorter now, nights are chilling down and we’re past peak for fall colors with dustings of snow in the high alpine across the state. It’s always nice to get out around this time for those last few dry-ish peaks of the season, not knowing when things will definitively be snowed in for good. Steve was up for getting out as well, and so we decided to head to the West Elk Wilderness northwest of Gunnison to hike its namesake high point, West Elk Peak. Keep reading…
I think Ben and I changed plans 4 times for this trip, because of the vagaries of mountain weather forecasting, and barely finalized our itinerary before it was time to start it. This was the right weekend to visit Crested Butte – after wildflower season, after Labor Day, and before Leaf Peepery. Riding with me from Denver to meet Ben in Crested Butte was my adopted son, Carmine, who had turned 16 in the last couple of weeks.
The approach began very easily, as we proceeded up the excellent Copper Creek trail. After an hour, however, we had to find the place to leave it and nothing looked great – we just found a way up the steep forested slopes that overhung there road to get up to Queen’s Basin. After the trees thinned, we followed a dry watercourse to the alpine grassland of upper Queen’s Basin. Here it is from Ben’s view looking back and then mine a bit further up, scanning the way to White Rock Mountain. Keep reading…
Between spring skiing, the summer race season and spending a lot more time on the mountain bike this year, I had somehow not hit a single new thirteener dating all the way back to October of last year. So now being into late-August it was time to finally get down to the San Juans and hike a few peaks. As Steve needed to be in Durango the following evening, I drove down and met him for dinner in Ridgway before we motored over to the Thistledown Campground above Ouray. Keep reading…
The Barr Trail on Pikes Peak is one of those routes that has been on my list for years and years, but for one reason or another, I just hadn’t done it yet. But not for lack of trying. I had a few cancelled dates along the way. I even drove all the way down to Manitou Springs a few years back, only to realize I had chosen the day of the annual Pikes Peak marathon to try to do my climb. Whoops. A slog through some open space in Monument was a pretty sad consolation prize that day. Keep reading…
