Rocky Mountain High

July 8, 2013

Chillin in Leadville. This trip has been pretty sweet since we stepped off the plane in Denver. The altitude hit me on the plane ride over. I have a middle ear condition and the pressure and dry air hit me pretty good as we drove to Frisco. We got to Goldhill at 6 and started walking what would be a pretty tough intro to Colorado hiking. The weather forecast was a guessing game with it changing so much. We camped at Miners Creek, did three miles the following day and camped at 11,900 feet. It was rough and probably a bit irresponsible for us to go that extreme but we handled it well. Wak got the worst of it and became acute for 12 hours but recovered nicely. We rolled into Copper Mountain Resort and had coffee and burrrrrrritoes!!!! Wak progressively got worse. The yogi's and guru's at Wanderlust were of no help. As we headed to Guller Creek, I made an executive decision to hike back to Wheeler Flats and camp. We found a good spot and Wak got the rest she needed to acclimate. I had only one issue at about 12,000 where I got crazy dizzy and so short of breath. Once we got above treeline, it just got so beautiful that we hoofed it to the top and became elated with the open ridge walk we were rewarded with. That was the moment I became acclimated. It took us almost 3 days to walk 12.8 miles!! Ain't no joke! Yesterday we drive down to Leadville and got back on at Tenneesee Pass. We should have started here but we didn't. Oh well. So we walked along Longs Gulch and entered Holy Cross Wilderness. We camped in a sweet spot with a group of CDTers. Great group. Hung out with Virgo for a bit before giving in to the bugs. We walked over some great views all morning and found our rhythm and felt acclimated. We have been out for 3 days and we feel great. Hitched into Leadville and find ourselves with the tv still off!!! We have made a pact to not review any pictures on our new camera until we get home. I'm shooting a ton of great pictures and video. I'm playing with the different settings and enjoying the walk. We are heading towards Twin Lakes and the famous General Store sometime this week. We will be making an attempt at Part of Mt Massive. I do not intend to summit but we are going to make a legitimate attempt at Elbert with it being rated as much easier than Massive. After that we may back track to the Searle and Kokomo Pass segment we skipped. I'm off to the land of PBR and packing for the next stretch of greatness in Colorado.

Colorado Trail

Just finishing up the final pieces of our planning. Heading to Boston on the 4th at 4 am to catch our flight. We have a layover in Atlanta before flying to Denver. Our buddy Stick Man is meeting us and then we head to Breckenridge! 

Zealand, Guyot and West Bond

Learned some very interesting lessons while on this hike. I met up with my buddy, Ryan (Guthook) to hike Zealand Falls to Guyot.  He would continue over the Twins and I was planning on 2 nights out. The rain started on Zealand and continued off and on. We made a pretty good pace, after we climb Zeacliff's. The trail was easy and in great condition. Lots of water. The hut was over run as was the trail. We saw one group of 30 hikers, which is actually not looked upon highly, but hey, one of the lessons I learned was that there seems to be a complete lack of regard for any sort of backcountry etiquette during the peak of the season. The summits and vista's turn into public toilets and people just dont follow the simple guideline of pack it in, pack it out.
So we pushed up to West Bond with a bunch of water and found a legal spot in the woods just close to the side trail to West. We ended up setting the tent up in the pouring rain, so I did what I could to get us level, but did not do so well. The rain really did not let up til well after dark. It was a long night of sliding back up to the top of the tent. Grayson slept soundly next to me and was wrapped up in my Montbell jacket. It stayed warm and got a little breezy towards daybreak. We broke camp by 5:45am and hit the trail, in the rain, at 6 am. The walk over Guyot was fun and different with the clouds building over the ridges and falling down. There was a storm coming over Franconia so we booked it over to Zealand. There was a lot of water everywhere and the falls were beautiful. Not sure Ill be going close to any of the AMC tentsites for a while. I do not envy the caretakers with dealing with some of these folks out in the backcountry! If any of you see Morgan at Guyot Tentsite, thank her and her fella for the hospitality! There are not as many photos because of the constant rain and the fact that I have hiked this loop 4 times now.

Grayson and Daddy at Zealand Mtn

Guthook on Guyot

6:00am wake up call

Garfield in the clouds

The battle

Grayson on the new bridge

Mt Adams via Airline and Lowe's Path

On the road at 4:45am and at the Appalachia Trailhead at 7 and walking. This area has an entire web of different trails, including Kings Ravine and the Valley Way. We were more focused on checking out the RMC facilities and summiting Adams. We head up to Crag Camp and really enjoyed the climb. After checking out these outstanding backcountry sites, we made our way to Lowe's Path and pushed to the top of Adams. We came out of treeline earlier than was expected. The climb was really nice because some high clouds moved in and it was quite breezy once we made our way up Adams. I had to put on a polartec fleece at Thunderstorm junction. The ridge and the summit were very both crowded. It made us slightly nervous because we did not know who was Hut bound and who was campsite bound. Luckily we made it to Israel Ridge and got to The Perch in great time. We set up our tent. We were testing our Double Rainbow Tarptent by Henry Shires. I have been using it as a solo tent so I figured Id try to get Wakapak back onboard with a single wall tent again. This would make my pack weight change significantly. She enjoyed the tent and I had it stretched out so that the floors were up perfectly and it was staked out great. So this will be our tent of choice in Colorado.
There was a really great crowd at The Perch. There was a family with their daughter on her first camping trip and the dad had everything covered. They were great and you could definitely tell the young lady enjoyed herself. There was a group of younger 20 somethings from Mass. They were a cool group. We hung out for the sunset at the shelter because of the really nice view. Afterwards we returned to the tent and went to sleep pretty quickly.
We woke early to a beautiful morning and headed out a few minutes before 7:00. We continued down the Israel Ridge Path and cut across The Link to  the WhiteCliff's and Cliffway Trail. We eventually join back up to Airline and made our way to the Trailhead. A great hike. Lots of water and waterfalls, bogs, challenging streams crossings, wet muddy trail and rock. It was fantastic hiking no matter what the conditions.

Looking up Kings Ravine from Crag Camp

The view from inside Crag Camp

More views from Crag Camp

Gray Knob

Takin a break

Looking back down Lowe's Path

Israel Ridge Path

Mt Adams 5774'

Waving to Washington and hikers at the summit

The Perch

Sunset at The Perch

Sunset

The Link

Lots of waterfalls

Garflield Trail, Frost Trail, Gale River Trail

Got a late start on Saturday and drove up to the Trailhead (TH) at Gale River Loop Road.  The lot had about 16 or so cars. We knew it was Victoria Day Weekend so lots of Canadians. Plus there beloved hockeys teams are finished in playoffs, GO BRUINS, so needless to say, lots of Canadians. The hike was great. Garfield Trail is in great condition. The long gradual uphill was great and we got into some good rhythms. The rocks dont start really until just before the last little climb up to the tentsite junction. There was still some snow and wet ice as you climb the summit but that is about it. We made great time and were the first one's to arrive. We took the same tentpad we took in 2008 and had the stars above us and a sunrise over The Twin Mountains. We watered up really nicely and ate dinner early. We did not filter or treat any if our water all weekend. Water was plentiful and ice cold. We went up to the summit of Garfield and hung out on the top for a few then made our way down to some of the ledges and hung out for a bit. We came down early and got back to out tent to find a 2007 Thruhiker named, SpaceMan. Had a great time sharing stories. Went to bed early but got up at 2am. The stars were outstanding and an orange ring cluster of stars stretched across the sky. I sat up for a few minutes just to watch the stars get brighter and brighter.
We woke up at 5am and saw the sunrise over North Twin Mtn. We had a great breakfast and left out by 7 am. We took it nice and slow going up Galehead. There was a bit more snow on this climb and Grayson rolled around in it and had fun. We got to Galehead Hut as everyone was leaving so we had the grassy patch to ourselves and SpaceMan. The caretaker at the Hut had made brownies and cookies so we had a major munch fest. The view was amazing and we took a nice long break and really took the chance to relax. Temps were probably in the mid 60's and there was a nice light breeze. We walked the half mile up the Frost Trail to the top of Galehead and back down. After we took another long break we got our packs back on and took off down the mountain and hit the Gale River Trail which had some nice decents and some ice. It was trickey in spots but fun. The last couple of miles were fresh new trail as result of a reroute from the bridge washouts. The trail was in great condition and super easy. This section of trail is beautifully maintained. We saw very little trash and packed out very little trash. Garfield is a great place to tent for the night. We had a great time. There were probably 8 tents and 4-5 people in the shelter. There was no caretaker.

Grayson walking with an empty pack

Garfield Tentsite

North and South Twin from Mt Garfield

View of The Whites from Garfield

Franconia Ridge from Garfield

The snow going up

view spot at Garfield

Mt Garfield summit

Hanging on Garfield

Sunrise over North Twin

The drop off of Garfield

Galehead

Galehead

Relaxing at Galehead Hut

The trail up Galehad

Team ChacoPak

Another Great Hike