I finally got caught up on my adventures en route to Colorado, and here are a few pictures from my adventures once I got here. A friend came up from Albuquerque to scale one of the 14,000-ft mountains in the Colorado Rockies. Our first adventure was 8 years ago climbing another "14-er," and we've done many hikes with our friends over the years, but all before I started blogging.
For this trip, we drove over to Buena Vista, CO, on friday night and got an early start for the climb. In the summer, you want to start early to avoid getting caught in a thunderstorm at the top where there won't be any shelter (indeed, there won't be a tree for the last 3,000 ft!). It started off cloudy with a bit of mist, but that's normal for early morning, so we pressed on.
The climb was normal for us -- start off in the forest with a mix of steep walking and more gentle slopes, the alpine meadows, and then some rocky places. I've yet to do one that requires true mountain climbing equipment (which is why I'm not intending to climb all 50+ 14-ers), but this one required using my hands for balance at some point.
As we climbed, the sun kept peeking through the clouds, but it didn't clear. Once past tree-line, we found snow on the trail, never more than a few inches deep. Then the wind picked up, and more snow pellets fell. By the time we got to the top, we had significantly restricted visibility, but we made it :-) As someone who's been living at sea level for awhile, I was pretty pleased.
I marked this post as "high point" since we were very close to Mt Elbert, the highest in Colorado. We scaled that one back in 2005, and we were rewarded with much nicer views:
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