Brad, Tim and I set out in my manly minivan to a trailhead that didn't require 4 wheel drive to camp out the night before a more strenuous hike up Centennial 13er Mt. Hope and neighbor Quail Mountain. When we got there, Tim realized he forgot all of his sleeping gear. Fortunately, I brought enough extra gear including extra foam pads, extra pillow, and an extra sleeping bag, all of which I was intending to use for myself. So I shared these items with him, but it didn't really matter as sleeping in a tent is not usually very effective anyway.
We woke at 4:00 am as we knew weather was looking rainy. We hoped to beat the weather at least while we were above tree-line for safety. This trail from sheep gulch is relentlessly uphill. We moved at a steady pace conserving our energy knowing we had almost 5,000 feet of elevation gain today. We reached treelike just as the sun was rising with stunning views over neighboring 14ers Mt. Belford and Huron peak.
We reached Hope Pass and surveyed the route up Mt. Hope. Route descriptions I had read made it sound like most of the route up was on tundra until the top where there was a bit of scrambling. This was inaccurate as the terrain was a mix of steep gravel and loose rock for a majority of the climb and slowed us down a bit. There were a few fun sections, but overall a tad unpleasant. The way down required a bit of route finding, and we had to backtrack a couple times before getting into steeper sections. In general, staying closer to the ridge as much as possible is advisable.
La Plata Peak from the summit
Mt. Elbert
Twin Lakes
Once back down to the saddle, we felt good and the weather was cooperating nicely so we had a good workout up the steep trail to Quail mountain. There are some cool mining ruins up there. While we sat eating second breakfast, a few ptarmigan started harassing us for no apparent reason. maybe they had some little ones nearby where we were sitting? They are some beautiful but loud little boogers!
Ruins with Missouri Mountain (center) Belford (left of center) and Harvard (far left)
Fighting over who gets the hiking polls on the way down
This one was overal a great choice for a day hike. Though the forecast called for possible rain before noon, we were dry the entire time. As soon as we got in the car just after noon, it started raining. Perfect! K's Dariy Delight is now our go to burger stand in Buena vista right on the main road on our way home.
The sun burning the clouds off of the Longs Peak group
First hike of 2025 might be the closest 12,000 ft. peak to our house, St. Vrain Mountain. This was a great warm up with just about 9 miles and 3000 gain. I was pleasantly surprised by the awesome views on this hike. It puts you at a perfect vantage for Longs, Wild Basin, and the northern Indian Peaks Wilderness. This will definitely be one I recommend to visitors in the future. I went with Black and White on the images for this one:
There was a group of friends we had scheduled to do a 14er hike last week, but right at the last minute, they all bailed for one reason or another. So J and I got to have some good bro time and decided to drive a little farther and climb on of my favorite San Juan peaks. I no longer have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, so we backpacked 4 miles up the 4 wheel drive road to the upper trailhead and hung out with a campfire.
We woke for an early start as there was a chance of thunderstorms before noon that day. As we reached treeline, we were rewarded with a colorful sunrise on the mountain. I ran ahead to take some photos off the trail in the wildflowers. J must have missed me and hiked way up the trail figuring I had gone farther ahead. I didn't notice him passing on the trail and we got separated. I went a ways back down the trail and couldn't find him, so I figured he must have went up ahead. I finally caught back up to him as he was heading toward the saddle. Whoops!
Once on the ridge around 8 am, it began to rain a bit and became quite windy. We continued up through it because it looked to us like those rain clouds would soon burn off. After some unfriendly warnings to turn back from other hikers, the clouds did indeed burn off and the weather turned out to be very nice for the rest of the hike. We enjoyed some fun little scrambles toward the summit. The top of this mountain is one of the most interesting with some of the best views IMO. There is a spot where you can stand and the cliff below looks like it drops about 2000 feet and gives some good butterflies.
Wetterhorn Peak
Handies Peak
Sneffels (right of center)
Precipice Peak
Dragon's Back?
We had some great conversations on the way back down including creating our own "rules for men". For example, a man should never dye his hair for any reason. A man should know how to shoot a gun and start a campfire. A man should do at least 80% of the driving on family road trips (our wives don't like to drive)...etc...etc. I'm thankful for the good memories and a fun and rare hike with my brother, especially with how busy he is with his business - Dry Out Restoration.
Nellie Creek Falls
About half way down as we were packing out on the road a friendly couple from Texas who owned some land in the area offered us a ride the rest of the way down. Thanks Texas couple! You saved our knees some soreness.
Brad and I originally planned to do a backpack into the Weminuche this past week, but there were forecasts of heavy rains so we called and audible and instead headed down to Willow Lake in the Sangre de Cristo mountains for a shorter hike that would take less time. Mt. Adams was on both of our lists, and was highly recommended by other hikers. We started on the trail completely engulfed by mosquitos. Wow. I'd never experienced such thick clouds of these vampires. They were so numerous that we would accidentally inhale them and gag every so often. It made for a miserable 5 miles and 3000ft. of elevation gain to the lake. Relieved to arrive at the lake, we looked around to enjoy the majestic mountain scenery. Only...wait...none of this looks like Willow Lake. Where was the massive waterfall and the views of Kit Carson Peak? Another hiker noticed that we looked confused and told us that we were 5 miles in the wrong direction! This was actually South Crestone Lake, not Willow Lake.
Bighorn Sheep
Brad's Karate Mobile
"This doesn't look right."
We had a good laugh (either that or cry) and sat down to think bout our options and look at a map. We figured out that we were looking up at Unnamed 13,159 to the east and Unnamed 13,552 to the south. Both of these were connected to Adams via their ridge so we decided to try and create our own route from here and see if the terrain would let us summit Mt. Adams. We did some scouting of the route that evening to see if we could gain the ridge of UN13,159. Once we realized we could do that, we had high hopes that we'd have a good shot to summit Adams the next morning. We built a campfire and enjoyed a mosquito-less night once the temperatures dropped.
Sunset over UN 13,552
The next morning we trailblazer our way to the top of UN13,159. It was another beautiful sunrise in the Sangre de Cristos. It's always a special experience to hike in places where you know very few others have traveled and experience the solitude. From the top of our first 13er, we looked at the route up Mt. Adams and had some serious doubts weather or not we'd be able to summit from here. The slope turned out to be much more doable that it looked from a distance. Once we reached the saddle, it was over 1000 ft. of type 2 fun climbing on steep loose talus. At the top was the summit blocks that we weren't sure we'd be able to safely climb, but hoped that the ridge would offer some doable options on the back side. Our hopes came true at the top and we had some quick fun scrambling to reach the summit. Brad and I agreed that Mt. Adams must be one of the best summit views in this mountain range. You could see a clear angle on all 5 of the Crestone 14er group.
