Huron Peak (almost)

Given how bad the "trail" was descending Missouri Mountain yesterday -- basically nonexistent -- we were concerned about ascending Huron today. Our backup plan, if we couldn't find (or hike) the trail, was to exit via the 4wd road and hopefully be able to cross the creek at some point.

Fortunately we found the "trail". On the Trails Illustrated map, this trail was drawn with the same thickness and line style as all the others, so we had assumed it would actually be like the others -- well defined. Nope.

First problem was finding the trailhead. It was supposed to be at the end of the 4wd road but somehow we missed it. No problem, we navigated through the woods to the north end of the lake where the trail crosses the "intermittent stream" (as described on the map).

Just before reaching the stream we saw a small aspen grove that had been broken in half like a bunch of toothpicks. The upper parts of the trees were scattered 100 feet away. Our first thought was that a tornado touched down. Rare at that elevation, but there was a funnel cloud near Mt. Massive last June.

Later we realized that an avalanche had slid down a slope on the other side of the creek, crossed the creek, and slammed into the aspens. It must have been this winter because the aspens looked freshly broken. And it must have been a HUGE avalanche. There were even snow deposits remaining that probably otherwise would not have been where they were. You can see the avalanche path in a picture from yesterday and a close up from today:

Further up on the mountain we saw more evidence of the avalanche; the stump this tree was plucked from was nowhere in sight:

Back to the "intermittent creek". Once we saw it, we figured that "intermittent" referred to the wintertime when the stream is covered in snow. It was not an easy crossing! The current was strong, the creek was wide, the algae-covered rocks were slippery, and we were boot-deep or more in places. I had better luck than Laurel with my gaiters -- she had to wring out her socks and boots on the other side. My socks were pretty wet too.

Once across the stream we headed south for a short while on what looked like a trail (it even had horseshoe tracks) before realizing the map showed the trail heading north. Indeed it did, and then switchbacked up and around the avalanche slope. Avalanches are most common on slopes with angles between 30 and 45 degrees, and I would guess this hill was on the higher end of that range. Fortunately it was vegetated, so the footing was more secure than yesterday's similarly-steep slope. On the other hand, it was quite vegetated, so it was difficult to hike in some places and in other places we lost the trail entirely.

Aspen thrive in the wake of an avalanche; the density and maturity of unbroken aspen further up on the slope hinted that the most recent avalanche may have only taken out the lower half of the slope, or else the bed of the avalanche was 15' off the ground.

Past the avy slope we navigated around a horn of rock cliffs, through a bog (I took one step in boot-deep mud!), and up a meadow. Since crossing the stream, the trail was so faint that we were only sure we were on it half the time.

The next challenge: a scree/boulder field. Fortunately not as steep as yesterday's. At this point we were starting to see some weather come in. Today was supposed to be better than yesterday, but our forecast was necessarily over a day old at that point and it didn't look like that was the case.

The rock slope flattened out for a while and then we had a decision to make. The map showed the "trail" ascending a steep scree field to the south, up to a saddle. But once on that saddle, it appeared it would be impossible to follow the ridge west to the main ridge of the mountain without some technical climbing. It seemed like the better way up was to continue west up the north end of a steep grassy hill to a secondary plateau, then somewhat southwest up to a different saddle. We did exactly that without any trouble at all.

With all the difficulties of the day, it was after 11am by the time we reached that saddle. The clouds had formed quite well by that point, so even though the summit of Huron was "only" 0.6 miles and 600 vertical feet away, we decided to bail. We headed directly towards a switchback on the main hiking trail, hiking across a slope of moderately sized rocks and a small snow slope. About halfway across it started raining lightly which made the rocks nice and slick.

Lots of challenges today, but we had a good time working them out. The remainder of the day was relatively uneventful -- we hiked down the trail for a few miles and then a few more miles along the road to get back to where we had parked.

As for the map -- it has quite a few strikes against it now: two trails drawn in the wrong locations, a raging "intermittent stream", and minor trails drawn with no distinction from major trails. Still, they are fairly good maps, but I think we've learned not to trust them exclusively and to check other sources next time.

Missouri Mountain

"Oh, it's an ass. I thought it was a mountain goat." Laurel sounded relieved. I took a few steps further on the trail and saw a guy in white shorts bending over to tie his shoes or something. Hmm... didn't look like a mountain goat to me. I took another few steps and saw a white donkey!

We took off for a few days to hike 14ers in the Sawatch range. Laurel had picked out a bunch of mountains, and I had the idea of linking together Missouri and Huron into a two-day backpacking trip (which became a bit of an epic adventure).

Most of the trip up Missouri was familiar territory, as we had taken that trail to hike Belford and Oxford last year. Once we got to the turn-off for Missouri, things got more interesting. The trail became steep and rocky with some exposure in a few places.

Along the way we ran into a guy hiking with his son. The father had fallen and dislocated his shoulder. My first-hand knowledge of dislocated shoulders finally came to use -- I explained how to reduce the dislocation and it actually worked!

We summited Missouri soon after that. The weather wasn't good enough to attempt the two peaks to the south, Iowa and Emerald. Emerald looked neat, maybe some other time we'll hike it.

From the Missouri summit we could see Huron, which looked very far away. Clohesy Lake was out of sight but we knew it was in the valley between the two 14ers. Just a matter of following the trail down to it... or so we thought.

Our Trails Illustrated map showed a "trail" descending from the saddle between Missouri and Iowa, down into a cirque, then down further into the valley. We hiked to where the trail should have begun. It appeared others had gone down at that point, so we figured that was it.

This was no trail! The slope was very steep and covered in loose sand, gravel, and rock -- all of which was treacherous to descend. It took us forever to glissade down 1,000 vertical feet of nasty rock. Our heavy backpacking packs didn't make it any easier.

Once in the bowl we managed to find a trail that seemed to go in the right direction. The interesting thing was that the trail also went in the other direction up a grassy slope to a ridge, and presumably up the ridge to the Missouri summit. That would have been a much nicer descent. (The next day we saw that trail drawn correctly in the Roach 14ers book. Trails Illustrated just plain got it wrong. Strike one.)

We got to the lake, set up camp, made dinner, and did a little exploring. It seemed like we had the whole area to ourselves. Other than hiking up and over a 14er, the only approach was on a long 4wd road with a difficult creek crossing, so we really didn't expect to see anyone. However, we did hear some hikers a few times in the night, one person said "Hey look, a tent!" Guess they were as surprised to see someone else as we were to hear them.

The other surprise for the night was that somehow I managed to pack up our water filter without the actual filter itself, so we used iodine instead.

The clouds turned a beautiful shade of red as the sun set behind the mountains.

Comedy of Errors

Saw Comedy of Errors at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Surprised to hear "Dromio, Dromio, wherefore art thou Dromio?" ad libbed in at one point. Good show.

Ride & Run

We took a nice long bike ride down to the South Mesa trailhead, and from there went for a 5-mile trail run, making a loop of the South Boulder Creek and Lower Big Bluestem trails. The trails were still kinda muddy so both we and our bikes got pretty covered.

Mount Wilcox and Otter Mountain

Dave invited us to join him on a hike of Mt. Wilcox. The forecast didn't look great but we decided to give it a shot anyway with an early start. All of the hiking was off trail and fortunately there wasn't much snow left to contend with -- just one snowfield we crossed at a narrow point.

We made it to the summit in just over an hour and a half. The wind was strong up top! Even getting a few feet below the summit provided some shelter. We snacked and watched the clouds forming over Bierstadt and Evans to the east. After 20 minutes we decided to see if we could tag Otter Mountain, instead of going back down the way we came. If weather rolled in, we had an escape route planned to treeline.

As we hiked the clouds unexpectedly seemed to dissipate, so we were able to summit Otter and then the high point south of it. We stopped again for a while just above treeline before descending further. I had seen this descent suggested in Best Hikes with Dogs: Colorado, so despite the close contours on the map I figured it wouldn't be too bad. It was manageable, but definitely steep! Once the terrain leveled off we found our way back to the road. We ended up just a quarter mile from where we had parked -- not bad!

It turned out to be an awesome, rain-free day. Six miles and 2,500' ascent in about 4 hours (plus breaks). We had the whole mountain to ourselves too, which is just mind boggling given that not even 5 miles away are two 14ers that had many hundreds of hikers on them today.


View Mt Wilcox and Otter Mountain in a larger map

Mesa + Doudy/Springbrook/Old Mesa

Today I ran a long way. On a whim, I posted on the Boulder Trail Runners list to see if anyone wanted to run 14 miles with me this morning. I got two takers! Cheryl, a forty-something mom of two, and Tom, a retired CU professor. They both kicked my butt!

We decided to run something close and the Mesa Trail fit the bill. (If you recall I ran this in November of last year.) So, we met at the Ranger Cottage at 6am and got started on the "lower" route. Tom knew all these really cool hook-ups that paralleled the main Mesa Trail, but further east. Many of the trail I had run before, but he knew all the secret shortcuts to link them together. Very cool! It took us 1.25 hours to get to the South Mesa Trailhead. Throughout these 6 miles I kept up very well!

Then, instead of heading right back as was our original intent, Tom suggested a 2-mile extension. We were all game since it was such a beautiful morning and we had made such good time to the south end. So, we crossed the Eldorado Springs Road and ran up Doudy Draw to the Springbrook Trail. Then we met up with the Fowler Trail. After the cool cut in the rocks, we dropped down on an unnamed trail right to the center of Eldorado Springs. From here, we ran up the Old Mesa Trail (Dan and I ran it for the first time back in May) and then linked up with Mesa Trail proper. By this time, my companions were starting to school me. The Mesa Trail is just constant ups and downs. By this point (13 miles in), I was walking the ups and jogging the downs. But, I made it and I lived to tell.

All in all we ran about 16 miles in just over 4 hours. Not bad considering the terrain. Here's the map!

First Flatiron/Green Mountain Run

Per Dan's suggestion, I decided to ride my bike to Chautauqua and run up the First Flatiron. By the time I got there at 7:30, I was already sweating like a pig! It was hot!

I ran up the trail in 36 minutes (I think a new PR). It was so beautiful out that I decided to go down the back side and pop up Green Mountain. When the trail was steep I was hiking and when it leveled off I was running. So, I didn't really run to the top. Oh well. When I got up there, there were a ton of people! I had to wait 10 minutes to get a spot on the summit block. Then I ran down the Ranger Trail and linked up with Gregory Canyon and Baseline. Overall it was about six miles. Here's the map.

Jamestown Ride

I rode up to Jamestown with Rose this morning. It was a gorgeous morning and a fun ride!

The map.

Twin Sisters and Lily Mountain Run

Today I drove up to Rocky Mountain to run Twin Sisters again. I parked down at Lily Lake and ran all the way up the road to the trailhead. This added about .5 miles to the run and about 100 feet elevation gain. I ran all the way to the the saddle between the summits. It took me 1:23! Then I scrambled to both summits and ran back down in exactly an hour. So, that portion of the run was about 8 miles and 2500 feet.

Then I wanted to run over to Lily Mountain. On the map it looked like the trailhead wasn't even 1/2 a mile down the road. I started running on the very busy highway and felt that the lack of shoulder was seriously detrimental to my health. So, I ran back up to the car and drove down the road to the next trailhead. This trail was 2 miles in each direction and it gained 1,000 feet. It was much steeper than I expected, so it was slow going. After 48 minutes I reached the rocky summit and then took 35 minutes to get down. Overall, I was running for 3:45 over 12 miles and 3500ft gain. Not too bad!

Hygiene

I rode my bike up to Hygiene today. It was fun, but it was really hot (90 degrees) and windy (west wind gusts over 30mph). I still managed to do just over 30 miles in just over 2 hours. Not too bad! Here's the map.

On an unrelated note, today is our Boulderversary! Yup, we've been in Boulder for three years now.

Woodland Lake

Today we took a very long hike to Woodland Lake. We started at the Hessie trailhead before 7:00 this morning. The first few miles were very pretty and peaceful. Then, as we gained a bit of elevation, we also gained a whole lot of snow. That's right, it's almost July and above 10,300 there were still FEET of snow. Of course it didn't help that it was 70+ degrees, so the snow was getting soft and proved difficult to hike. The going was really slow as there was no way we could stay on trail (what trail?), and we had to keep weaving in and out of trees and rocks to try to stay on the most solid snow.

We finally got to the lake 4.5 hours after we started--and it was only 5 miles away. Our original intent was to climb a glacier (snow field) to the summit of Skyscraper Peak, but by the time we got to the lake (the base of the climb) we were both too tired and frustrated to continue. Plus, it was getting late in the day to be above the treeline. So, after a nice lunch, we navigated back down the snow. Snowshoes proved to be more trouble than they were worth, so we ended up postholing quite a bit. I have to say, throughout the day it was amazing to see all the creeks flowing with such rampant force--and SO much water!

Anyway, we finally got back down 2.75 hours later. Once we got back to the less-snowy section we started running into A LOT of hikers and a few backpackers. It was a great sunny day to be out in the mountains.

Hall Ranch Run

This morning I went for a 9.5 mile run up at Hall Ranch in Lyons. I've done the run several times before, but never brought a camera. So, here are some early morning shots.

Sidewalk turtle

On my way back from checking out an apartment for Donna and JJ, I saw a turtle on the path! This is the first time I've seen a turtle in Boulder. It wasn't too far from the ditch, so I guess that's where it lives. Not sure what he was doing out.

Also, I recently found Waldo somewhere in Boulder (not telling where).

Bike Ride 2

Today we went for another bike ride. This ride was on trails, though. We made up our own "dirty B-180", including a lot of singletrack. We rode up to the Rez, where a Sprint Triathlon was going on. Some of the volunteers thought we were part of it and signaled to us to turn in. Anyway, we rode on to the Sage Trail and made a loop out of the Lefthand Trail and North Rim Trail (which was such narrow overgrown singletrack it should be called quarter-track!). Then up the steep Eagle trail to the mesa, down to route 36 and then on to Foothills. We passed Wonderland Lake and then headed east back home. It was another 22 mile day.

Bike Ride 1

Today we did a lot of biking. We rode downtown to the Farmer's Market and yoga festival. I got yummy peas and Dan got some turnips. Then we rode to south Boulder to get a book out of the library for my summer school class. We traveled east to see if we could find the bears in the tree. Unfortunately, we had no luck. Then we headed home for a bit.

Later in the afternoon we rode to Gunbarrel to check out an apartment for Donna and JJ, who may be moving to Boulder this summer. On the way back, we stopped at Jay Hill Farm and got some beets. All in all we rode over 23 miles.

White Ranch Open Space run

This morning we did a 12 mile trail run at WROS in JeffCo. What a great trail system! The whole thing allows bikes too, which is phenomenal. Lots of nice singletrack. Took us a bit over 3 hours.


View WROS-run in a larger map

B-180 and Bike Park

Every year we miss the official B-360 ride around Boulder -- this year I think because we were out climbing that Saturday. We decided to check it out Wednesday night -- actually we did the B-180 so it was just 18 miles, not 26.

Before heading home we checked out the new Valmont Bike Park that opened in our neighborhood last weekend. Pretty sweet! It was lots of fun riding the well-designed one-way singletrack with bumps and curves and optional "features" that we mostly skipped. I say mostly because at one point I went over a small wooden bridge thing and then over some cobbles laid into the path. And then I went over a wavy wooden bridge and nearly made it. Just before the end my front tire slipped off the bridge, I went over the handlebars, and my bike somersaulted over me (and landed on two wheels). I got scraped up a bit but it was pretty funny to see the bike land like that in front of me. Laurel was right behind me, saw the whole thing, and was relieved that I was laughing afterward.

South Sneak Success!

In September, we tried to climb the South Sneak route, but somehow missed a right turn and ended up walking off the rock prematurely. Today we decided to give it another shot.

We rode to Chautauqua with our packs and hiked up to the base of the 2nd Flatiron. About 5 minutes from the start of the climb, Laurel asks if I grabbed her shoes. Whoops. So our early start to the day was eroded a bit.

I led the first two pitches as before, trying to keep an eye out for a good place to head north. Probably turned too soon, as the rock I climbed was fairly vertical -- definitely not in line with the "class 4" rating the route was given (not that the rest of the route felt like class 4 either though). In any case, I found a way up to the ridge and followed that to the summit of the South Block. From there, an easy scramble over to the base of the Pullman Car and the trail back home.

Intermediate Snow Part 2-LMR

You may recall that last summer I sprained my shoulder. Yup, I remember! The injury not only prevented me from participating in the sprint triathlon last summer, but it also precluded me from going to the Intermediate Snow field trip with Dan. Well, today was my make-up day. The snow school director invited me to join this year's class, so I did.

We met in South Boulder at 3:30 this morning. We drove up to the Bear Lake trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a gorgeous, bluebird day from the start. We began hiking as dawn was breaking in the east. To everyone's surprise, there was a ton of snow everywhere! Not 30 minutes from the trailhead did we put our crampons on because the snow on the trail was ubiquitous and very icy.

We hiked up to a slope near Lake Helene. There we practiced crampon and self-arresting techniques for about an hour. Then we started hiking towards the couloir at the edge of the bowl. However, once we got past Lake Helene our instructors noticed huge cornices on both sides of our route that might break off in the hot sun. So, it was on to plan B.

There was another slope off to our left that we decided to try. The bottom 300 feet or so were at a 30-degree angle, and then what looked like the upper part was a steeper 35- to 40-angle. However, once we got past that section, the slope started to gradually flatten. So much so, that repeatedly I thought I was 20 steps from the top, but it was more like 400 steps. We stopped for lunch shy of the Flattop Mountain summit. Then, the plan was to hike the rest of the way up the mountain and take the neighboring Tyndall Glacier down back to Bear Lake. Unfortunately, 200 feet from the summit, we had a good look at the glacier and it was more corniced than the other side! It looked like some weather was rolling in, so we quickly turned around and glissaded down the slope we had just come up. Then we traced our route back to the parking lot.

Using crampons to attack snow slopes is so much fun! I really want my own pair of plastic boots and spikes to climb up all our snow! All in all, today was super fun and we were out hiking 10 hours. It's 6:30 and I'm ready for bed!

Benjamin Loop run

We rode up Boulder Canyon to the Betasso connector trail, parked our bikes, and started our run. The connector is steep! Beyond that segment though, it was nice rolling narrow trail. The new Benjamin loop adds about another 3 miles, so we ended up doing an 8.5 mile run before heading home.

Fifth Flatiron

Today we climbed the Fifth Flatiron. The morning started with a vigorous hike to the Royal Arch. Then we bushwhacked up a steep slope to the base of the rock. Dan led four pitches to the summit via the East Face South Side route. It was a fun climb on pretty good rock. The summit block was neat and the rappel was into 75 feet of thin air.

The descent was a bitch. The scramble down the south side of the rock was as steep as the rock itself, but covered in pine needles, small pebbles, rocks, and lots of other slippery things. Rather than hiking down the Royal Arch trail, we detoured to Woods Quarry and down the Mesa trail.