Here’s a couple more shots from our hike on the Big South Trail last Sunday. It was a beautiful day all day long, and there were quite a few kayakers out on the river.
And here’s another version of that stunning shot from the bend in the river.
After a weekend of hard work, Mark and I decided to sneak out for a few hours on Sunday afternoon to do a little hiking and picture-making. We covered maybe 2 miles of the Big South Trail, which was, as promised, very beautiful. Though, next time, I’m not forgetting bug spray!!
I played around with my flash, tripod, and some nice long exposures. The results are up in the gallery.
“… but don’t count on luck to survive.” –Mark Houston and Kathy Cosley in Alpine Climbing: Techniques to Take You Higher
So, this is the advice ringing in my ears when we take off to climb on Lumpy Ridge in the Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday. As we were heading south at around 9:30 that morning, we knew we were really late. Really late. But hey, you never know. Only a 20% chance of rain, maybe we’d get lucky?
When we got into the area, the clouds were already thick and getting worse. We decided to change plans from a multi-pitch climb on top of the ridge to single pitch climbs closer to the trailhead. We were hoping to make it to Crescent Wall or Fin City.
The first rolls of thunder hit us not more than 10 minutes after we left the car. No visible lightning yet, but we got sprinkled with rain a few times. While we could see the crags in the distance, we never found the approach trails and eventually found ourselves all the way up at Gem Lake.
It was a pretty little lake, with gorgeous views. But it’s still annoying to hike 30 lb packs of climbing gear up 2 miles and 1500ft of elevation gain, and know that you won’t be climbing that day. We rested for a few minutes at the lake, and then started to jog down as the thunder got closer and lightning began to flash around us in earnest. The weather deteriorated rapidly, and we took shelter in a small, dark cave while the worst of the lightening pounded the cliffs around us.
The storm moved off, and we hiked back down to the trail head. Still nervous of flashes in the distance, and a little too-close-for-comfort thunder. The trail through the woods below us was coated in a thick layer of pea-sized hail. It looked like rough, icy, snow had reappeared in patches all over the valley. I guess it’s summer in the mountains!
Maybe we’ll get up earlier and have better luck later this summer.
Yey! I got my camera back! It was really cool to be able to check out all of those pictures that I took on Sunday, and thought I’d never see again. You, too, can see them in the photo gallery.
With Mom in town, we wanted to take her on another really great hike for the weekend. We decided to head up the classic trail to the summit of Greyrock mountain, just northwest of Fort Collins. It was a pretty nice day, the sun kept coming and going behind a pretty thick layer of cloud, but the air was warm enough to keep us sweating as we worked our way up the mountain.
We decided to take the meadows trail on the way up, and it was a really nice trip. We saw lots of great spring flowers, and deer out munching the new green grass. Mom did great the whole way up, and even scrambled up the exposed third-class boulders to the summit block on top of the mountain! She said she was really surprised to see the ponds, forest and frogs that live in the summit area. That’s always my favorite part of making it to the top.
As we were hanging out on top of the rock, Dylan and Ann topped out from their multi-pitch trad climb up the southwest slopes. It was fun hanging out with them as they re-racked and talked excitedly about the adventure they had just had. We ended up helping them carry their stuff down the mountain, and then hiked out with them at the end of the day. It was a long day, almost 8 hours round-trip, and I was tired as we piled in to the car. So tired, I left my nice camera sitting on the side of the road as we drove off! But that’s for another post. For now, it was a fun day, and we topped it off with a great dinner with Dylan and Ann at Coop’s.
Thought I’d add one more blog posting about our trip to the desert last weekend. I don’t know if it was the spring season, or the warm weather, but we saw lots of desert wildlife while on our hikes. On Saturday, we saw rock lizards, desert bunnies, and even a whole flock of Gambel’s Quail (which I couldn’t get a descent photo of).
Sunday was even more exciting for catching crazy wildlife. On our hike out, Mark yelled at me to “Stop!” and then asked me “Is that real?”
“Is what real?” I asked.
“The giant blue lizard sitting on the rock in front of you.”
Giant blue lizard, huh? I thought he was loosing it, or maybe a bit dehydrated. But after scanning the ground for a split second, I saw it too. About 10ft down the trail, was a giant blue and yellow lizard. It looked like a toy, except it was breathing, and it blinked at me. I slowly approached it, taking pictures every 3 or 4 feet, until I was within 2 feet of it, holding my camera out into its face, and still taking pictures. It blinked at me. I walked away, and let Mark walk over and check out the lizard. He never really moved. Just sat there, and looked at us.
We tromped off after this encounter, and not five minutes later, I saw something move on the trail infront of me. This time it was me yelling “Stop!” And Mark simply squeaked a bit and jumped backward. There was a 5ft long bright yellow and brown snake peering out onto the trail. I took a couple of pictures, and again, the thing didn’t move at all. Since it didn’t rattle at me, I figured it wasn’t poisenous, but we didn’t want to get too close. Ever since the sea urchin affair, my motto is strictly “Look don’t touch!”
We threw little rocks at it for about 2 minutes until it finally decided to move off the trail and back into the brush. I guess not all of the excitement from the weekend happened off the ground!
Just one more wildlife shot before we take off for another fun weekend of … this time … camping! Woo hoo! It’s FINALLY warm enough to get outside and camp and climb and enjoy the prelude to spring.
For now, I wanted to add that I have a whole gallery full of shots from hiking with Amy last weekend: click here.
Have a happy St. Patty’s Day everybody!
Last weekend, my friend from childhood, Amy, came out to visit us. She brought along her doggie Murray, and we took them out for some great hikes and some beautiful days in the mountains!
On Saturday, we did the Greyrock Meadows hike to the trail conjunction with the summit trail. We had a great hike, with beautiful views despite overcast skies and a good bit of snow on the trail. As we climbed the final ridge behind Greyrock, the snow started pouring out of the sky. We discussed, and decided that this much snow was not good conditions to summit, so we headed down the canyon trail. I think Murray had one of the best days of his life, he LOVED running through the woods, sniffing for animals and playing with Liv in all of the meadows.
On Sunday, I found a trail just south of Estes Park that is still on National Forest land, and thus allows dogs. The Lilly Mountain trail starts at a nearly unmarked pullout on hwy 7, and is 2 miles to the summit. We packed up the snowshoes and headed up into the mountains.
It was a good thing we brought the snow shoes. We saw a few people near the trailhead coming back out after being thwarted by the deep sloppy snow. Even with the shoes, the trail seemed lightly traveled this winter, and had no blazes to help guide us. We lost it a few times. Eventually, we ended up on this beautiful outcrop with incredible panoramic views of the whole Estes Park valley. It was well worth the sloppy snow.
I don’t know if this was actually the summit of Lilly mountain or just a great view along the way, but we decided to call it the summit and headed back down. We had enough light after this hike to take Amy over to see the Stanley Hotel, and then head up into the National Park as far as we could before the road closed. The sunset was quiet and nice, and the Elk were out in force. It was a really nice day, and a great weekend! Amy’s going to have to come out and visit again soon!!
