Mt Quandary - My first 14er!

bigger, better slideshow, without captions in the way...

A 14er is a mountain in Colorado that tops out over 14,000 ft in elevation... there's only 30 of them or so, and for some people it's a big deal to climb all of them. I thought I'd do at least one... was an amazing view, and workout. I think I'll stick to 13.9ers or so though - the popularity of the mountain was silly. Wilderness should not feel like a highway :P. Great hike though.

This ended up being a lot further away then I thought - I finally went through the Eisenhour tunnel under a huge hunk of the mountains - scary on the way down, fine on the way in - and got to Frisco and Breckenridge. Kind of cute towns, fake-ish. I was confused by all the people IN the tourist town on such a beautiful day next to such beautiful scenery. There was a great paved bike trail through the valley and by lakes and lots of streams... maybe I'll get out there to do such things. Not very far up the mountain at all was the trailhead.

Shortish first stretch through forest... This was not as well maintained as others I've seen, lots and lots of dead timber on the ground. Would be scary in a forest fire. Some nice krummholz meadows... I will tell my story of those sometime (pine-scrubs). Then. Rocks/scrum/scree. and really steep climbs. For a very long way. The first half?ish was fairly steadily steep. Then there was a little break on a ridge. and then it was nearly vertical for a lot longer then it looked. Was fun, lots and lots of little breaks though, altitude and plain old tired. Amazing views from the tops, lots of other 14ers, had someone point them out to me here (as I did at Grizzly peak too, I'll learn them all sometime). Pictures tell the story I guess.

I stopped close to the top and tried ink drawing/painting mountains, might post that sometime.... but. Took off my backpack to do that, and even though i finally bought sunscreen for myself, I did a bad job applying it evenly down my back... haha splotches. doesn't hurt too bad except the back of my neck.

I think I've caught up now... as always, will try to stay more current. This pictures to Picassa to captioning to short story flow seems to be pretty efficient though, might actually do it :). Keep records of old adventures as inspiration for new.

Grizzly Peak hike - June 16

Better Slideshow

Resigned to loss of bicycle, I decided to climb something high and non-bikable. This didn't end up too extreme, but it was definately high and not too busy. I find hikes online mostly, looking for reviews and pictures. Not too systematic about it, sometimes whatever I'm looking at when I decide I'm tired of looking ends up where I go. Looking for combination of hike quality and short-ish drive generally.

Grizzly Peak was pretty obviously not that popular, but the pics were amazing.
This panorama and these (scenery more then people) were what sold me... so I went. It doesn't feel like cheating the experience to look at pictures first - it never looks exactly like that, and you forget them anyway experiencing it for yourself. I had been up Loveland Peak before with Krisana on the way to skiing in A-basin, I was proud to be able to drive it on my own this time.

Lots of little peaks on the ridge. I think there was one mini-peak after the true summit... but the view was nicer from that one anyway. View down to valleys on three sides, and far-off mountain ranges all around. Saw marmots! large mountain muskrat-y things sort of. Would have been a quick hike, but I took a nap at the top. Sunburn.

Golden Gate Park - hiking - June 10th

http://picasaweb.google.com/zactlymyself/070610GoldenGatePark

Beautiful drive out to this park - through Golden and up, a few JeffCo Open Space Parks on the way that I might check out other times. There are a lot of amazing free parks in the mountains - it's kind of crazy to be able to just park and walk up into wilderness without paying... very, very nice. I did pay for the state park, oh well. Only time I have paid so far (other then gas). I've had a lot of fun learning to drive on mountain roads, I thought I'd be terrified, but it gets easier, then fun... I'm still pretty cautious though.

Ended up being a seven or eight mile hike, with relatively modest vertical gains. Went up a mountain... but not that big of one. Great payoff for an easy-ish hike though, overlook of valley and far mountains beautiful. Lots of streams at the base... I need to take a waterfall or stream-based trip sometime. I remember lots of them from Rocky Mountain National Park, maybe I've just been hiking the wrong trails.

Up, down, played on rocks and trees - fun hike. Burro Trail, for future reference

Start Slideshows. Bergen Peak.

It takes a lot of time to record things, especially when you have lots of pictures. I'm more likely to transfer pictures to computer then take time to write stories about them. So: I'm going to try to integrate them more and caption my pictures to tell the story, then embed the slideshow. I'll probably end up writing more too if this becomes a habit, but then I don't have to walk through them twice. Capiche? K. Here goes...


(much better viewed on Google albums, imo.... http://picasaweb.google.com/zactlymyself/070531BergenPeak) stay here if you're lazy...

So... I made it up and down Bergen Peak with my bike. I see this mountain every day on my way to and from work, and it was just too tempting. I knew this one would be above my abilities, but I wanted to do it in order to have a reference point for the end of the summer to see how I'd improved (then my bike got stolen, so that plan is shot... oh well, more likely to live through the summer this way).

Rode some of the way up... walked my bike a LOT more of the way up... it was really steep and technical (technical means lots and lots of fairly large rocks in the trail, dropoffs, roots, gullies, etc). 4 miles up I think, and 4 miles down... the down went a lot faster, strangely enough. Rode most of the way down, made a few but not too many of the switchbacks, fell once (going about 0 mph, not enough momentum), walked over a few patches, but I successfully rode over things I saw and didn't think I'd get over on the way up. Woo! Scary, but lots of fun... I wish I still had my bike :(. Hiking is more ecologically sensitive though, you can get to more amazing places, and you get more of a chance to look around... just a lot less adrenaline.

The probable highlight came at the bottom of the mountain - a huge loop around the meadow that was entirely downhill... It started raining right as we got out of the trees, cold and soaking... but the trail was even and beautiful, going exactly the right really fast speed without pedaling - it felt like flying. After the tough climb and tense descent, the freedom was amazing.

This is the first hike/bike I took my camera on - the weekend before I biked up Waterton Canyon to the Colorado Trail, but no pictures. Not as many pictures to take while biking either... no free hands.

(Summary of Waterton Canyon) Very flat 6 mile bike ride on a gravel road between Front Range hills, got interesting when it started up the sides of the canyon. First mountain biking here... pretty intense to get started. I gave up a little ways in, but talking to people at the bottom convinced me to keep trying. It's hard to be anything beyond completely cautious starting out... I climbed about 800 feet in a mile, lots and lots of switchbacks, beautiful mountain biking trail - fairly few rocks, pine needle trail. Would go back again especially with gear to go camping on the trail.)