Longs Peak Aug. 9 August 13, 2007

Kurt and I left Golden at 3 a.m. to start the drive up to the Longs Peak trailhead. When we got there at 4:45, we were about the 40th car there. And that was on a Thursday. Longs Peak, apparently, is no secret.

The sun coming up over Twin Sisters Peak, at about 5:45 a.m.

Kurt and the sunrise.

The early sun hitting The Diamond (the east face) of Longs.

Kurt prepares to have his morning constitutional at 11,400 feet.

Here’s The Keyhole, which is about 6 miles into the 7.5-mile hike, but as Aaron told me, feels like halfway. We passed through The Keyhole, at 13,000 feet, and still had more than 1,200 vertical feet to go up.

Kurt at the bottom of The Trough. Note mule train. Like I said, it’s no secret.

The view of Glacier Gorge from a little ways up The Trough.

And the view south from the Summit.

Kurt and I at the top, about to head back down. We need to communicate better on the posing for the photo, as this looks pretty awkward. My fault.

A view of The Diamond on the way down.

Rocky Mountain National Park July 28 August 3, 2007

Even though we knew it was going to rain, Emily and I went to Rocky Mountain National Park for a 13-mile loop hike on Saturday. These clouds over Notchtop Mountain were a pretty early sign that we were going to get at least a little wet.

Here, I’m sitting on the side of Joe Mills Mountain, looking at what would normally be Knobtop Mountain and Little Matterhorn.

Emily in front of Little Matterhorn.

This guy came out and posed for a few photos while we were hanging out. Unfortunately, I don’t have a very powerful zoom.

This waterfall is coming off the side of Knobtop Mountain, way on the other side of the gorge.

And this one, Fern Falls, you can get right next to. It was hot when we were here, so it was kind of nice to get a light spray from the falls.

Pics – Estes Park – June 1-3 June 12, 2007

Here’s Nick cutting into his wilderness food staple, the room temperature plastic-wrapped sausage. He can’t walk more than 2 miles on dirt or rock without eating it. We were on our way up to Storm Pass from the Longs Peak trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday morning.

Here’s Nick doing a little scrambling near the top of Estes Cone (11,006 feet). Just to his right, off in the distance, is Longs Peak.

The view from the top of Estes Cone. From left, Aaron, Krista, Emily and Nick. The left peak is Mt. Meeker and the right one is Longs.

This tree and I really hit it off.

We did a car shuttle so we could start at the Longs Peak trailhead and end at the Glacier Gorge trailhead, hiking over Storm Pass. Here’s a view from the west side of the pass. The middle peak is Hallett Peak.

On Sunday, we did some toprope climbing at a crag next to Mary’s Lake. Here’s Krista climbing an alleged 5.8 route while Nick and Aaron act like they know what they’re talking about and I belay her.

Of course, before we got much climbing on, we got soaked by a pre-1 o’clock storm. Seems to be a trend for me this summer. Still, we had a ton of fun.

Pics April 2- April 8 April 9, 2007

I took Thursday morning off work and drove up to Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder to do some bouldering. I pretty much had the park to myself, so I wasn’t ashamed trying to take these two self-timed photos of myself. I thought the top one was going to come out a lot better than it did.

This is Murphy, the Great Pyrenees that hangs out at La Gardenia, a new art gallery/organic bistro on 8th Avenue and Santa Fe. We met him during the First Friday Art Walk on Friday night.

Nick and I rolled the dice on the weather Saturday. Since it was snowing/raining in Denver, we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and snowshoed up Flattop Mountain. We spent the first mile or so inside a cloud, but when we got above it, we were able to get both sunburned and windburned. It only kind of sucked. The view was great, though. The top shot is of Otis Ridge, I believe.

Here’s Nick looking into the gorge between Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain.

The Salvagetti Breakfast Ride wasn’t much on Sunday, with a couple inches of snow on the roads, and Easter. Scott, Maynard, Jen, Myra and I got some coffee and bagels and blew the entire morning at Metropolis.

Another ho-hum day in paradise, Estes Park, Colorado December 17, 2006

The ridge that forms the east side of Glacier Gorge from the Emerald Lake trail.

Emily and I went to Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday for probably our last hike there for 2006. We went for a quick 3.5-mile snowshoe up to Emerald Lake, at a little over 10,000 feet, and called it a day.

The Bear Lake trailhead, where we started, is typically packed with folks of all types during the summer (tourists looking for a short stroll, hikers, and alpine climbers) only had about 20 cars in it, and everybody we saw was pretty serious; snowshoes or tele skis only.

Emily in front of Hallet Peak, at the east end of Dream Lake. I believe she’s smiling.

But we did run into a lady in heels — not pointy high heels, but black leather boots with about a 2-inch heel on them — on our way down, about three-quarters of a mile from the trailhead. I was surprised she had gotten that far up in the snow. Then, about 20 seconds later, we passed two guys who were roped together like they were headed up Mt. Everest, except neither of them had ice axes. I wonder if they felt overprepared when they ran into the lady in the heels.

Of course, we saw no wildlife on the hike. But, about 100 yards from the park entrance, just off to the side of Trail Ridge Road, we saw about 150 elk. So we did the right thing and took a bunch of photos.

(Click photo to enlarge)
Looking southwest from Trail Ridge Road. I believe that’s Beaver Mountain in the background.