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.
A group of preachers from our church plus James wanted to do a climb of 14er Huron Peak this summer. I had climbed Huron twice before and wanted to do an alternate (Lulu gulch) route that included three 13ers as well as Huron. I assumed the guys would be cool with me just hiking alone and then meeting them on the Huron summit, but turns out most of them wanted to just do all 4 with me. Then, when we found that only one of them just wanted to do Huron and not the other peaks, we changed plans and decided to hike most of the trip together. This way, I could split off and do Browns and UN 13,471 while the rest summited Huron. That ended up being a better choice because we got to have some good bonding time during the hike debating denominational issues and telling dad jokes.
Markos has a cool rooftop tent setup that we used. It says it's for 5 people, but the 4 of us were pretty packed in there. Usually the number of people a tent says it can sleep is a generous number and you should subtract one or two if you want to be comfortable.
About as close as four straight men can get
We started at sunrise the next morning and made good time up the switchbacks. Once we reached what looked like a good branching point I left the trail and headed up the talus slope toward Browns. The terrain was not as steep as it looked and the hike was fairly pleasant. It was quick work to the unnamed peak from Browns and back. Then I descended back to a pond that we said we would meet at thinking the guys would be down there waiting on me. Turns out they took their sweet time on the Huron summit and I actually waited for an hour and a half for them to return. Were we able to communicate somehow, I might have just climbed up to meet them on Huron's summit. Oh well. It's always nice to get a few hours of solitude in the mountains.
Those 3 Apostles are so picturesque!
Huron and pond
Heading up to Browns
Missouri Mountain I believe
Looking over at Huron from the saddle
La Plata Peak at center
Huron form UN 13,471
That feeling when you get back to the parking lot...
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:
We took the kids on what is becoming our yearly backpacking adventure to what I thought would be an easy hike up to Mohawk Lakes near Breckenridge. They both brought their new children's cameras and had a great time taking pictures of all the mountains, wildflowers, ruins and waterfalls along the way.
Part way up, we had to take shelter from a rainstorm in the trees. As the rain was dying down and the sun peaking through, KD guessed that there might be a rainbow nearby. Sure enough, we looked behind us to see an awesome full rainbow below us in the valley. I only had a few moments to grab a cell phone shot.
It took us a while to actually reach our camp at mayflower lake as we
hiked up some steep switchbacks for a while. This wore the kids out pretty
well and they both had about nothing left by the time we reached the
lake. We set up camp quickly and made dinner. There were trout everywhere in this lake. I tried to catch something, but they were not interested in lures. A few people were catching them on flies. I'm 100% positive I would have caught dozens of fish with a handheld net. I tried to sneak up on a few to see if I could grab them with my bare hands, but Tootsie kept scaring them away. I think she wanted to try it too! After sleeping very little due to a dog that wanted to play fetch at 1am, I rose before dawn to hike up to the upper Mohawk Lakes to catch a bright and beautiful sunrise.
