Rattlesnake Gulch..

I do this hike far too often. What can I say though, it's a good distance (about 6 miles round trip) and has a nice elevation gain (about 900ft in gain) and has some great views to the west and east. Since I started hiking a year ago (about June 28, 2008) I've done this trail at least 6 times, and every time I enjoy it. Anyways, enough babble about that, on to the pictures!

I started off on the trail around 9:15 AM, lugging Mike's 50D with me. I do enjoy using that camera, but it's a bit heavier than I'd like to carry on an extended hike, like the CO Trail one I still want to do (and I'm still learning how to take any sort of decent picture with it.) Unlike many of the pictures in my previous posts, this one is mostly things that stood out, and not so much the scenery.

As I worked my way up from the Fowler trail, I saw the familiar sights along the way, big boulders, pine trees, aspen, a few birds, and a few people, though nothing caught my attention right away. Well the scenery did, but I've posted it to death. I'll probably post more eventually, but, not tonight.

I wandered my way to the Continental Divide Overlook, and decided to have lunch. I set my pack down on the bench and grabbed my lunch and sat down beside my pack. There was no one around, and I sat listening to a gentle breeze blowing through the pine trees behind me (there really is nothing quite like that sound.) After a little I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye, and saw these two running around, looking for food that someone had dropped.







A few minutes more listening to the wind and watching the two chipmunks run around, and I decided I'd had a long enough rest and it was time to get moving again. So back down the trail I went, to the Rattlesnake Gulch Loop, and proceeded uphill!





I took off on a small side trail that goes to a great overlook spot, and I had to take a few pictures.







Another minute or two of looking out over the mountains to the 14ers far off in the distance, I decided to get a move on again, going back down to the loop and continuing uphill. Which brought me to a few flowers..










As I drew closer to the highest point on the trail, I started to hear birds chirping, and after a little looking, I found one and waited for him..finally he landed a little ways ahead of me on the trail. I forgot what it's called, so no name for it!





As he flew off, I started up the trail again. Finally crossing the highest point, I took a picture I've taken before, only this time, all the leaves were green instead of bright red.





A little farther down, just before reaching the path to the railroad tracks, I saw this flower, and just before I took a picture, a butterfly landed on it, giving me this shot (I wish I'd gotten one of its wings open as it landed.)





Finally I was to the downhill section of the Loop!





I saw another flower that stood out to me, contrast to the green and red all around it.





And just before I got to the Craig's Hotel site, I looked out across the canyon for this shot.



I finally got back to where I'd started from, and decided to take a few pictures of the river while I was relaxing a bit before the drive home.

Long time no post.

Ah yes, it's been a while since I've posted. Probably because I haven't been able to hike much since Mt Democrat. No physical reason, just not as much opportunity and time as I'd like. I did one hike in Eldorado, up Rattlesnake Gulch again, but everyone's seen the pictures of that place, though there are a few nice ones from it. If I can find them. For a while I thought that I may have deleted the originals (the RAW files, I had half size jpgs left, but ew) in a recent computer reloading. All hope is not lost, however, as I found them. I'm so glad I have an external HD to back up to.

Give me a few hours to pick out and do some editing, and I'll have a post up and running.

Mt Democrat

This last weekend I went with the BCC group and did Mt Democrat. I was hoping to do all 4 (Democrat, Cameron, Bross and Lincoln) but at the top of Democrat my feet started hurting (specifically my heels, which just get worse as I walk more,) and I decided not to. Anyways, we left at about 5:15 AM, and got to the trail head and started hiking at about 8AM.



The trail heads off from Kite Lake. From this trail, you can do the four mountains. The trail is mostly a circle, that ends up with 4 shots off of it, one to the top of each. Kite lake gets its name for, well obvious reasons:



Along the side of Mt Democrat, there are several waterfalls that feed into Kite Lake:









They're fed by snow melt, and there were still several large snowfields around on the mountains, even though it's July. One of them that you have to cross to summit, was at least 50ft long, and about a foot deep (I don't know how wide it was, because I couldn't see the other side after it dropped over the edge.

From the saddle between Democrat and Cameron:



When I reached the summit, there were probably 25 people there. While I ate my lunch and relaxed a bit and took some pictures, a couple of people asked if I'd take their picture with a sign they made, they then offered to take mine with it (Their elevation is off, it's actually closer to 14,140 ft)



It was extremely windy on the way up and down Democrat, and in some gusts, it would have been easy to lose your footing if you weren't being careful. Now I can cross one more 14er off my list. Only 52 to go.

Eldorado Trail, I actually did it this time

So I got to looking again, and found out that I'd forgotten to do a post on the Eldorado Trail that I did a while back. I did the post about when I had to call it off, but not on when I'd actually done it. I started off my dropping my dad off on the Walker Ranch Loop Trail, which he was going to do between two trailheads. The one I'd dropped him off at, and the one I would leave my car at. We headed out on Saturday May 9th for our hike, and got there around 10:30AM.






After that, I hopped back in my car and drove 10 minutes to the next trailhead. It was about 1.5 miles of trail or so between the two spots. When I got to the Ethel Harold Trailhead of the Walker Ranch Loop, I was the only one there, which was kind of cool.




It was a beautiful day for a hike, probably 60 degrees at most. I'm kind of a slow hiker, but still didn't see many people on the trail, on this end.




I've taken that pic before, but it you couldn't see anything nearly as well because of the fog.




After about a mile on the Walker Ranch Loop, I came to the Eldorado Trail trailhead.




You start out down in the canyon, near South Boulder River, and work your way up to a ridge at about 7,600ft. Along the way, you come across an interesting sign:






There's about 2 miles before you reach the ridge, and the trail raises slowly towards it, taking several switchbacks, some buried in the trees, others at the edge, giving a glimpse of mountains further back.






From there, you head down into Eldorado Canyon. I was planning on taking pics of the view from there, but started talking to another hiker that was heading the same way as I was, that had never been to Eldorado before, and it slipped my mind. Scary, I know.




The trail turns and follows the ridge for a while before turning and heading down into the canyon. Here you lose most of the shade that's provided along the way up from Walker Ranch, and start walking on a trail that's in the sun most of the time. There's trees every once in a while, but the majority of this end of the hike is in the sun.




After a fair distance, you are down under the cliffs that have been closed, with trees hiding them from you. The trail follows the side of the mountain around, passing through several gullies, and for the most part is almost flat, barely going downhill at all.






A bit farther down the trail, you start going through trees a bit more, and climbing back up slightly, over some rocks, though nothing extreme, and enter into Eldorado Canyon State Park. After entering the park, the trail begins to go down hill through lots of switchbacks, and gets steep in a few places. You also start to see more and more people as you get farther into the park and closer to the trailhead.




You finally end up down at the road above the river in the canyon, which is the trailhead in Eldorado.

Blast from the past

Since I just got the new netbook, and figured out how to make my phone share out my internet access, I get to post and surf the net from where ever I really feel like it now. So, while sitting around feeding my caffeine addiction, I decided to start looking through some of my older pics from last year, and came across the ones from Humboldt Peak. Some are good enough to post, I guess. I'll have to upload them when I get home, because this connection isn't the best for that kind of thing, but I can at least write this thing while I sit here.

This one is from the trail to the campsite near the base of the Crestones, a short walk from the trailhead. I'm sure some of these are repeats of the ones my mom first posted back when Mike and I first went up and did the hike. There was a 1.5 mile hike from where we parked the truck to where we actually camped before heading up the mountain the next day.

Down the valley out towards how we came in:




Crestone:




Crestone covered with something sort of like half-melted hail falling:



The view up the valley towards Crestone, with the ridge over towards...I forget what, over to the saddle to Humboldt:




Crestone again, after the snow-ish hail quit falling and we were after pictures and water:




View back down the valley from South Colony Lakes:




Figured I'd just do a random post with an old hike in it. Just because I could, and because I wanted to see how well this would work out typing and everything else on the new setup. It works pretty well.

YAGP (Yet Another Gear Post)

Yes, apparently I have more stuff I need to list as 'gear' since I noticed I don't have it all in the other posts. That and the fact I've gotten new gear, it's a required update once in a while.

Tent:

Big Agnes Sunnyside 2 - This is my current tent (mine is also gray, not yellowy-orange.) It's heavy. After carrying it for 3 days last time, I was about tired of it. 6lbs (the 'shipped weight' on the box it came in was 7lbs) is heavy. I'm currently researching a different tent that's half the weight. The other issue was the rain. This tent is two parts - the tent body, and the rain fly. Great for keeping out the rain after its started, not so great while setting up. The top of the tent is mesh, so any rain that falls while setting it up will get inside the tent.

The two new tents I'm trying to decide are on the REI Ace SW 2 and the Big Agnes Seedhouse SL2. I'm not sure that I want a single wall tent, need to talk to someone who knows more about it and has experience with them. Either of the tents are about half the weight of the Sunnyside 2, which would be a huge reduction overall.

Clothing:

The Mountain Hardware pants have to go back. Some of the seams came apart, so, sort of worthless. So, I found some REI pants I like a good bit (plus they were on sale during their annual sale.)

REI Sahara Convertable Pant - Comfy, though I've burned a hole in one of the zip off legs (well, two holes) while sitting around the camp fire. Whups.

Columbia River Runner Shirt - Very comfortable. Soft as can be, and light. I haven't worn it hiking yet (though I have another similar shirt that I have.) People act like I'm dressed up when I wear my hiking gear. Go figure.

Columbia Silver Ridge 2 Shirt - Just as comfortable as the River Runner shirt, though not as soft. It's a bit lighter, and I was quite pleased with it on the Colorado Trail segments 3 and 4.

Bridgedale Lightweight Endurance Trail Hiker Sock - Wow that's a long name. Great socks though, I cut down to wearing one pair on the 30 miles of trail over Memorial Day, not one blister, feet stayed nice and dry too.

Marmot Afterburner Fleece Jacket - Finally another one I could find at Trailspace. It's windproof and just as heavy of a fleece as my old one. I wanted it for the windproof goodness of the thing. Nothing was worse than getting toasty warm in the other, then getting frozen by the wind that blew straight through.

Other stuff:

I picked up some of the CamelBak Elixir Tablets before the trip out on Memorial Day. A bit expensive, but worth it for a boost and a change from plain water (though filtered water straight from snow melt is GREAT.) I'm just glad it doesn't leave any funky taste in the reservior after I finish them off. They taste pretty good (4 tablets in 100oz. doesn't taste watered down to me, like the one guy says.)

Exped Pillow Pump - Picked this up to be able to ditch the fleece's weight and bulk. That's not to say the fleece won't find its way back into my pack during cold weather, but, this thing is lighter and about 1/4 the size of the fleece.

Tarp - It's a good thing to have. Emergency shelter, extra warmth, rain gear, whatever. It's light and a good cook area under it for one person. 6 ft by 8 ft, any smaller and it'd be too small for what I got it for.

I think that's it for new gear. I can't think of anything else, currently anyways.

Chief Mountain

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, so I'll post about the hike I did with the BCC group a few week ends ago. We went up Chief Mountain on June 6, 2009. It was a fun hike. There's an 1100ft gain in 1.5 miles, but, unlike it sounds, it's a very easy hike.

We left for the hour long drive around 9:00 and got started on the hike around 10:15, crossing the two lane road and hiking up past a forest service road.







The hike started out with tall trees on either side of the trail, giving little to no view of anything. There were a few clearings, however, where previews of the upcoming views could be seen.



We then came to a small outcropping of rocks just off the trail with a great view out across the surrounding lower mountains.



Through all the trees, and up at the top, there were large drifts of snow, some 3 or 4 ft deep. Even though it was a warm day, the wind at the top made it a bit chilly to stand on the rocks at the summit.

We summited at noon, even with all my picture taking stops (I only took about 80 pictures, I was holding back!) Some arrived before us and some a little after, but we were all at the top within a few minutes of each other.



A short scramble up some rocks provided us with quite a reward for climbing this mountain - Mt Evans and Mt Beirstadt to the west, as well as Pike's Peak far off to the south.






Even up on the top of a mountain you see lots of things. This little chipmunk stole an apple core that had been dropped:



And a few flowers were around too:

CO Trail Segment 3 and 4

It's been almost a week now since I got back from the start of my planned two week trip. I started with something rather nasty that just finally started clearing up in the last two days. So with another 30 miles of the Colorado Trail done, I'll make a post.



We set out on Saturday morning for our 3 day weekend of hiking. It's the longest I've spent out before, and it was enjoyable for the most part (the being sick wasn't enjoyable, it made things a good bit harder.) The main part I didn't like on all of Segment 3 was the bikers. It seemed like every 10 minutes we were getting off the trail to let a group of 4 or 5 pass in one direction or the other.





Due to the weather, most of the days weren't worth taking pictures on. I still managed 245, but, some didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. The weather is also part of why I came home early. It rained/drizzled/sleeted for the better part of two days, and rained off and on at night.

We managed to pull off about 9 miles the first day, which was definitely more than I wanted to do, but wasn't too bad. We set up camp near a large rock, and gathered some firewood. This fire was pretty easy to get going and maintain. The wood wasn't too wet, dried quickly and burned nicely.





A while after we'd eaten dinner (which consisted of hot dogs, apple cider, and s'mores, carried up by Mike) by the fire it started to sprinkle again. We got our gear thrown in the tents and zipped them up, and got under the tarp just in time for the three or four minute downpour. Fortunately, the kept going through the rain, and we got to go back out and sit by it again, although the ground was a slight bit wet.

I turned in early that evening, around 8:00 or so. It was starting to get dark, but not quite there yet. This trip I'd decided to try my air pad instead of the one I had been carrying. I woke up a few times during the night, but not nearly as many times as usual on the other sleeping pad, so I'd say this one is a keeper for the rest of my trips.

We got out of camp about 9:30 the next morning, after a breakfast of eggs, cheese and pepperoni. Mike still claims he can't cook, but the eggs were good. We got off to a good start and got most of the way to segment 4 before noon. We ran into some people filling their water bottles at a stream and decided to fill up some for ourselves, and had some pleasant conversation with them.

We started Segment 4 about 11:300 that morning, and it seemed to be all up hill. Probably because it was all up hill the first day. The last 750 feet in gain was the worst for me. We finally worked it out that I could do 1/10th and take a 1.5 minute break. It's really hard to do any kind of work when your lungs are working at half capacity, at best. Add on top of that that it was sleeting and drizzling up through the trees, and there were a few flashes of lightening that got to about a 7 count before the thunder, it was quite miserable.






After we crested the ridge (at about 10,640 ft,) it was much easier. Except for walking through all the rain that had come down, and was still coming down a bit. Most of the time we were walking in a stream that followed the path through the forest. We came out of the forest and off the trail and joined back up to the old logging road we'd followed before. We didn't have to worry so much about the stream anymore, and the rain and lightening had stopped.

It was getting late, pushing on about 7:15 when we finally got camp started, after pulling out a 12 mile day. We put up the tarp and tents, and Mike took my folding bucket (new for this trip, worked great) down to the stream to collect water for dinner and breakfast, while I put the stakes in for the tents. We spent some time gathering firewood, which turned out to all be wet from the rain earlier, and I got a small fire going. It only lasted a couple hours, and didn't do enough to dry our clothes, but it was still a fire.

During the night, we heard the coyotes calling up and down the valley we were staying beside. We'd hear them at one end, then it'd echo the entire distance. We even heard them get a kill that night, though we never saw it the next day.



We broke camp and got out to a little earlier start, around 9:45 the next morning. That day I decided to try the Camelbak Elixir Tablets, and I've got to say they helped me a good bit. I'm disappointed I couldn't get my hands on the Camelbak Filter Adapter I was looking for for this trip. No one seems to stock it anymore, even though they claim they do (Permanent back order status.)



The last day of this trip flew past, it was almost no vertical elevation change (600 ft over 7 miles is almost nothing.) We ran into 4 other hikers that day. All of them had spent the night out in two different groups, both apparently lost, and hiking somewhere different than they thought they were, due to a broken compass. Two of them had seen our truck the day before, and one went with Mike to get it and bring it back for the rest of us.

We got to the end early, at about 2:00, only to find out the directions for leaving the truck were to the wrong spot. Luckily it only cost us about an hour of time to get to the truck.

All in all, it was a great trip. Tiring, but great. I hope to get my two weeks in sometime later this year, sooner rather than later.

Co Trail Segment 2

So Segment 2 has come and gone. Sort of. It's been two days now since we got back from finishing it, and I'm finally posting about it.







It was definitely a fun one, and much easier than the first. 11.5 miles start to finish, and 1981 ft in gain (compared to the 2338 ft of the first segment...trust me, 400 ft is noticeable) The hardest part was having zero water along the entire segment. You start at the South Platte River, and continue up through the burn zone of the Hammond fire from 1996.



We started hiking at about 10AM, a bit later than we'd hoped, but it was plenty of time. We made it in about 6.8 miles to our camp site, and we were there very early. It was a great site, however, with lots of wood in close range for a fire, and plenty of flat area for our tents and cook area.



That day was just as hazy as it looks - it seemed as if we were in a cloud the entire evening. It started to drizzle a bit, and we quickly set our tents up and then the tarp. After that we started gathering firewood and preparing for dinner.









I woke up during the night to the sound of light rain falling on my tent, it's definitely a different sound from anything in the city. I for one, am glad of that.

We started the day with a big breakfast of eggs (Mike carried them all the way up there and didn't crack a single one) bacon, and cheese. Even though he claims otherwise, Mike's quite the cook.



After breakfast, we broke camp and cleaned up our fire pit, we headed out on the trail again. It was almost 10AM when we headed off from camp to finish the last 5 miles of the trail.

The area is almost desolate - very little in the way of trees that survived the fire, but the scorched and burnt trunks and branches of the trees remain.






At the same time, there's life blooming back. Small things, Yuca, cactus, grasses, small wildflowers and bushes are spreading.










And that's the end of the trail! It was tiring, yet fun. Hopefully I'll be able to get down what works and doesn't for my two week trip..coming up in two weeks.

CO Trail Seg 2..the night before.

So the night before the hike is here, and speeding by. Tomorrow's forecast is..well, cool. 44 for a high, 33 for a low, in the general area we're heading. It'll be chilly, but not too bad. 60% chance of precipitation. Which means I had to chase all over to get a rain cover for my pack. I got some last minute food and am ready to head out at about 7:00 tomorrow morning.

With two hours of driving for leaving one vehicle at the end, and going back to the start, then getting the one vehicle back..and going back to get the other. If we could swing someone dropping us off at the start, it'd save about 45 minutes of drive time, but, that's how it goes.

Hopefully it's not too much rain. Wait, I'm supposed to laugh in the face of rain. HAHA!


Thought for the day:

Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.