Category Archives: Hiking

I’ve written my thesis, I’ve defended my master’s, and now I’ve finished teaching my class at Colorado College. I’m home, I’m done and I’m taking a small vacation. The day after I got home was my birthday, and in celebration of my first day off in more than four months, Liv and I went for a little hike. There are a few pictures (mostly of the very cute doggie) up in the gallery.

We started at the new trailhead behind the stadium just off of Drake road. From there, the trail winds through grassy open space until it begins to climb the steep side of the foothills. We hiked at a fairly good pace all the way up to Rotary park, to the top of the little summit just south of the parking lot for Rotary. From there, we hiked down to the reservoir for a drink and to stop and take some pictures in a brief spot of sun. After our break on the beach, we hiked back up to Rotary, and down to the car. About 4 miles of hiking and two hours later, Liv and I were back in the car and heading home. A nice way to spend a nice day off.

Photos from the weekend are in the gallery!

On Sunday morning, Jim set his cell phone alarm to get us up in time to take pictures of the sunrise in the desert. There was some discussion as to whether or not his phone had updated for the end of DST yet, but we decided since the phone had been off all afternoon it was unlikely. Thus we set the clock for what we thought was 6a the night before, and found when it went off the next morning that the sky was still pitch black. An hour later the alarm went of for a third time, and I saw the light in the east that we were looking for.

The sunrise from our camp was beautiful that morning, with just enough cloud cover to really bring out the colors. We ran around shooting for about 45 minutes, then ate breakfast, packed up, and hiked out. Without stopping for photos on the way out, we probably made it back to the car in about an hour. When we got to the car, we discovered that the phone had set itself back for the time change, and it was only 9:30a. This gave us plenty of time to mosey our way south out of the park, stopping to enjoy the various views around the park.

Despite the icky traffic, we made it back to Orange County around 3p that afternoon. Grabbed In-N-Out Burger in the afternoon (gotta love the animal-style fries!), dropped off the rental car at the airport and caught the shuttle to our hotel for the conference. It was kind of fun getting to the swank Newport Beach Hyatt covered in dirt and sweat, and watching the sand pour out of my shoes and pants cuffs as I stripped for my shower that night. Heh heh, it’s always good to have some fun in the desert!!

Photos from the weekend are up in the gallery!

Jim B (a fellow CSU atmos grad student) and I were sent out to an MJO workshop last week, so we did the usual thing and flew out a few days earlier to get in a little hiking and sight-seeing. Jim named Joshua Tree National Park as his destination of choice, and the next few weeks were spent trying to figure out what we wanted to do there. I was thinking about rock climbing, as it is such a beautiful place to do this, but Jim is afraid of heights and Bruce’s neighborhood nearly burned down, so we ended up doing a one night light-and-fast backpacking trip. This turned out to be a good plan, as our flight was late getting in and all of the camping in the park was full when we got there, plus there would not have been much time for climbing.

We left the car around 4p, and made good time on the flat and sandy Boy Scout trail in the north end of the park. This was Jim’s first trip to JTree, and he was having a great time enjoying the surreal landscape in this part of the park. We hiked for about 2 hours, stopping to take a lot of pictures, and probably made it about 3 miles down the trail before the sun started to get low. We picked a spot near a nice little pile of rocks, took a bunch of photos of the sunset, and set up camp in the dusk in the desert.

I have a small back and a small backpack, so to pack all of the stuff I needed for a weekend in the desert, I didn’t have space for our tent. Instead I brought a small tarp, and laid it out with my trekking poles as supports and prepared to sleep out under the stars. I was warm and comfy and sound asleep after about 10 minutes while Jim sat out in the desert taking long exposure shots of the stars.

Jim brought his own tent, which he set up further down the hill. After I’d been asleep about half an hour, and he headed to his own tent, the quiet of the desert was disturbed by what I can only describe as a “honking” noise. It sounded like a goose or bull frog was about 50-100ft south of me. I still have no idea what that noise was, or why it would have emerged from the silence of the desert and slapped me across the face the way it did. I laid in my tarp feeling exposed, and sure I had just heard a cougar or alien or creepy little guy in the darkness that I couldn’t see. 5 minutes later I grabbed my sleeping bag and trucked across the brush to Jim’s tent. He was nice enough to let me sleep in his shelter for the night instead. Yes, I’m a big wuss. But really, what honks in the desert? I know the tent is no less protective than sleeping outside, but I felt better and actually got good sleep in the end. Ah well, this is why they call it an Adventure, isn’t it?

Lots of great shots up in the gallery!

On their last day in town, Mark and I decided to take his parents up to Vedauwoo for an afternoon hike. Snow had fallen over the area the night before, and the Box Canyon trail wove up through the Turtle rocks covered in a light layer of wet, melting snow.

Vedauwoo is an amazing and mysterious place. Each season the light changes, the trees change, and it seems the rocks themselves change. Mark and I have spent so much time there this summer, that the Turtle Rock formation felt like a whole different place with snow on the ground and water running over the rocks.

We hiked to the top of the trail, and everybody thoroughly enjoyed the view. I scrambled over to a large flat area and Mark took a bunch of shots of me doing yoga. It didn’t take us long to get up there, and we made it back to the car right around two hours. I don’t know how long the hike is, but Mark’s parents felt it was not too steep and not too long, and perfectly fun. They both had so much fun, they hope to head back to Vedauwoo someday.

More photos from the day are up in the gallery.

On my parents last day of their road trip, they ended up in Colorado Springs. Mark and I weren’t able to meet them for camping on Friday night because of Liv’s injury, but I drove down to the Springs on Saturday morning to meet up with them for the day. We had reservations on the 10:40 cog train to the summit of Pikes Peak!

Mom was a little nervous, as was I. Mark and I took this train two years ago, and I remembered it being VERY steep. But on Saturday, it wasn’t bad. The trip went quickly, the views were beautiful, and the whole family had a great time.

The summit wasn’t as cold as the last time Mark and I were up there, but the views were still great. TJ and I got Pikes Peak Summit doughnuts and macaroni and cheese! We hung out, shopped and took pictures for our allotted 45 minutes, and then it was back on the train down. The family had a great day, and lots of fun on this little adventure. We then hopped in the cars and headed home to the Fort!!

There’s a whole heap of photos from the day in the gallery. Check them out!

In preparation for my parent’s road trip for the season, we decided to head down to Buena Vista, Colorado and check out the hiking trails up a few 14ers. We left the trailhead for good at around 6:30a, and our original goal for the day was Missouri Mountain (or Misery Mountain as Mark was calling it). But when we arrived at tree line just before 8a or so, we were both feeling tired and decided that the closer Mt Belford would make a better goal for the day.

Our route up the mountain was the steep Northwest Ridge, and while it never got more technically difficult than 2nd class, it was a long slog. We spent our morning dragging our feet up over endless switchbacks, generally without a view of the summit. Eventually, I found a good rhythm: every 4th switchback I stopped standing to catch my breath, every 12th was a sit-down rest. Mark probably could have gone faster, but he was nice and stayed with me.

Eventually, we drug ourselves up over the shoulder of the mountain, and from there is was a shorter and less steep hike to the summit. At almost exactly 11am on August 25, 2007, Mark and I bagged the summit of Mt Belford at 14,197ft above sea level, our 5th 14er.

The summit was a bit crowded, but I always say that more than half the fun of hiking 14ers is hanging out with the people you meet along the way. We sat happily in the sun on the sheltered south side of the summit for almost an hour. We did discuss continuing on the visible and fairly easy trail to Mt Oxford, but our water reservoirs were low, and there seemed no place to filter water along the 3 mile round-trip hike to Oxford. After enjoying the views a bit longer, and deciding the weather was holding out for a beautiful day, we decided to hike down the easier, but slightly longer, trail over Elkhead Pass.

The hike down was fantastic. We found a spring to filter water from just under the pass. The day warmed up and the weather was perfect. We moseyed our way down, enjoying being in the mountains, and found ourselves back at the trailhead at just before 5p.

We spent the evening cooking soup and fresh corn-on-the-cob over the campfire. Our free campsite was just off the road, a little past the trailhead, and while there was room for at least 4 other cars and tents, we never saw a single person stop by. I played with some long exposures of the fire and the creek that ran next to our site. And then the whole family promptly fell asleep at dusk.

The next morning we got up and packed up camp (while munching on tasty burnt bacon). We decided to drive up the Mount Princeton road, and see if it was something that my family might prefer for a hike when we’re out there in two weeks. Yeah, there’s no way my mom would have any fun driving on that road. After three steep, scarey, rocky, holey, miles, we found a wide switchback to turn around in, and decided to head home. We’ll be back, I’m sure, someday to hike all of the other 14ers in the area. The Collegiate peaks are steep and remote, but still my favorite mountains (so far)!

I put the rest of the photos from the weekend up in the gallery!

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. I had one of the best nights of sleep while backpacking that night. I think it supports my theory that I am not capable of sleeping at 11,000ft. Our camp was closer to 10,000ft this weekend, and I felt much better all night. I woke before Mark, grabbed my camera and dog, and hiked back up to the lakes for morning photography. I was not early enough to catch any alpin-glow, but the reflections on hang lake were incredible.

I wandered back to camp and got Mark up. We made breakfast (thank goodness for that mosquito netting again), and Mark had an adventure in backpacker’s biscuits and gravy. Liv ended up eating half a roll of self-rising biscuit dough that morning. We packed water and snacks into Mark’s bag and then hiked up to Blue Lake.

Sunday, the weather seemed much better. Mark and I were quickly able to hike to the top of the nearby pass. From there, we had to decide if we wanted to hike to Island and Timber Lakes on the far side of the pass, or hike up to the summit of Cameron Peak from there. I’m a sucker for peaks, and Mark calculated that the elevation loss/gain would be about 2,000ft less if we just went up, so we headed into the trees.

The trail we found wound up around the lower slopes of the peak to a wide grassy saddle on the north side of Cameron Peak. From there, it was straight up over the hill, over the first false summit, and then on to the true one at 12,194ft. The views were awesome.

Another great thing about this little peak, we were the only ones there. We hung out on the summit, which we had all to ourselves, for about half an hour, and then took off down the hill. We decided to descend the south side, on a more direct route to the pass. This worked great until we got a little lost in the trees, and I did end up leading us into a bit of a swamp towards the end, but we popped out into the grass again quickly without much bushwacking.

From there, we hiked back to camp, packed up, and headed back to the car. It took us about 3.5 hours to hike down from the pass to the car that afternoon. It felt grueling, and I found myself horribly sunburnt by the end of the day. As of writing, my nose and back are kind of peeling. But it was a really fun weekend!

So we’ve heard so many great tales of friends hiking and backpacking in the mountains lately, that Mark and I decided it was time to get our sorry butts out to the wilderness last weekend.

I’ve put the first batch of photos up in the gallery.

We left Ft Collins a little late on Friday evening, and it rained for most of the two hour drive up the Poudre Canyon. Everything was so wet by the time we reached the Blue Lake Trailhead, that we decided to just find a free place to park and sleep in the car. We drove across the street to Long Draw Road, and quickly stumbled upon a very nice, quiet, free site. Hmm, have to remember that these are here for the next time we’re camping in the area.

Mark said it was the worst night of sleep he’d had in a long time. I guess the car just isn’t long enough for him AND the dog. I did ok, and after making coffee and packing up, we hit the Blue Lake Trail at around 9am on Saturday morning.

We moved quickly over the flat-to-undulating first couple of miles, but started to slow down as the trail steepened. Around noon, we hit a serious rain shower, and we decided to pitch the tent in a nearby spot and wait out the rain there. We had about an hour to dry off and eat lunch before the sun came out. Looking at the wet rainfly and gear sitting in the sun, we figured it would be best to leave everything where it was and go look for a better site up near the lake. So we took some water and our raincoats and finished the last 20 minutes of hiking up to Blue Lake.

This large alpine lake sits right at tree line, nestled in a little valley between Clark Peak (12,951ft) and Cameron Peak (12,127ft). As the sun came out and everything dried off, we had a beautiful afternoon to walk around the lake and enjoy the area. The wildflowers were in full bloom, and columbine covered the banks of the lake.

Eventually, we scrambled up to Hang Lake, which sits about 500ft above Blue Lake at about 11,150ft. The view of distant Rocky Mountain National Park, Never Summer Mountains, and Mummy Range was incredible from there. And it looked like those mountains were seeing much worse weather than we were.

Eventually we had to head back to find a campsite. We saw some great sites down in the trees next to the lake, but there were signs everywhere saying that there was no camping allowed within 0.25 miles of Blue Lake. This didn’t seem to bother the 30 other people we saw camping down there, though. We found a nice site in the woods just off the trail just before the “No Camping Past This Point!” sign, moved all of our gear and tent stuff up the hill, and set up for the night.

Unlike our last trip two years ago, this time we brought a little wad of mosquito netting with us. I found this little mosquito tent at REI for $20 a few years ago. It’s only 3.5ft tall and maybe 6ft long by 4ft wide. It’s supposed to hang over your camp bed inside your canvas safari tent, I think. But we stuck it in one of Mark’s pack pockets for the hike up, and then hung it between a couple close together trees for a very short dining fly. Boy, was that nice. As the evening wore on, the whole south side of the netting was buzzing with those little buggers. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have to sit out in that swarm.

Mark was exhausted and fell asleep before it was even dark out. I read my little novel and eventually fell asleep myself.