You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2006.
<– Mt Timpanogos.
<– Starting out. It was chilly at 6 or so.
< Sunrise
< The first falls. Less than a mile in. Lots more water than we’ve seen in years past. The trail is gravel and asphalt up through the second falls.
<– The trail right after the second falls turns to dirt (which I prefer) and features sections that are rocky like this.
<– Another feature we’ve not been able to enjoy in the past – vast fields of wildflowers.
<– Some of the snowfields we passed.
< The Goat passing a snowfield. These snowfields were not bad at all.
<- Wally on a break.
<– The trail as it crosses some scree and hugs the wall. This would not be scary normally, but with a wiggly toddler on your back, it’s a little nervous.
<– A very pretty waterfall. 
<– Five-ish miles in, we found this lovely alpine meadow and took a break in the shade.
<– More of that meadow.
<– Here we are at the Cirque and Emerald Lake. yay us. Wally nodded off right before we got there.
<– A little shelter house was built here in the 50s. –>
<– Here we are nuring a little at 9400 feet.
<– And here we are nursing outside at 9400 feet.
<– Some mountian goats came to say Hi. There is a herd that lives in the area, and I guess Emerald Lake is a favorite hangout. Apparently, they are fairly used to people.
<– The view of the valley below.
<– Emerald Lake. About 5.5 miles from the trailhead.
<– The “glacier.” It’s not really a glacier. But everyone calls it that.
<– The cirque was just beautiful.
<– The trail goes behind this waterfall. It’s about 3 miles from the trailhead.
<– You can see where the trail goes if you look. This is heading back down.
<– Our family at a break about 2.5 miles from the trailhead.
<– Nursing at the trailhead.More photos are available here.
Posted by Tar
Whoo hoo!! I love achieving goals, and we achieved this one. I can now look at Mt Timp as we drive by and say truthfully, “I was up there!!” Not all the way to the summit – we have read that the climb from Emerald Lake to the summit is quite challenging, and neither of us could imagine doing it with a two year old on our backs. But we reached our goal of Emerald Lake, which is in a cirque just below the summit.
Whoo hoo!!
There will be a technical description of the trail to come, complete with photos, but I’m just not willing to sit in the Albertson’s parking lot for as long as it will take to upload the photos. (I also have no quick way of scaling the photos down while on the road, as this computer doesn’t have any of the right software on it.)
But here is my report. Whoo hoo.
The first mile or so wasn’t bad, considering that I had pre-determined that it was going to suck. This is the first hike that I didn’t have to carry Wally for the first part, and I think that made a huge difference. The trail climbs almost 1000 feet over the course of the first mile or mile and a half (to the second falls) and that’s all gravel and asphalt, which I personally find hard on the joints. Once we hit the dirt path above the second falls, it was fairly easy going. Gently sloping in places, steep rocky climbs in others. Several snowfields, none of which were very particularly difficult.
The higher we got, the steeper and rockier the trail got. The boulder field was not fun. Have I mentioned how much I hate walking through boulder fields?? I don’t like it much. Just passing the boulder field gave me a fairly sizeable sense of accomplishment, because it was shortly after the boulder field that we had to turn back last time. The thrill of seeing new things along the trail was nice.
There were a few places where we lost the trail, mostly because there are several shortcuts across switchbacks and there are no trail markings whatsoever. In a few places there are “not a trail – stay on trail” signs but the people who put those signs up have not been able to keep up! Anyway so we shortcutted a few times without really realizing it, but generally picked the right path just by going whichever way was the most up.
There’s nothing more discouraging than being able to see how close you are to the top, but not being there yet. We had this conversation numerous times – “we’ve gotta be close, right?” “you’d sure think so.” “Just around this corner/over this ridge/past this switchback.” Man.
Goat was dying carrying Wally, but I felt remarkably good with just the pack. We passed by a mountain meadow complete with shade and a small lake (really just a large puddle) and decided to rest for a while – about 45 minutes maybe – before continuing up to Emerald Lake, which we thought surely must be just around the corner, right? It was slightly further than we thought it would be, but it was there! Yay!!!
It was so pretty up there, too. There’s a small shelter house near the lake, which we headed to mainly because Wally was asleep but complaining about the wind in the cirque. We rested in the shelter house for a while, watching some mountain goats across the way. As we watched, they headed over in our direction, and eventually came within touching distance. They gazed at us somewhat unconcerned. There were several babies, none seemed to be nursing still.
Anyway, after a while we headed back down, and the way back down was hell with the constant pounding really hurting our feet and knees. We also ran out of water (I broke one of the bladders) and so were quite thirsty by the time we got back to the car, where we had cold drinks waiting for us.
PS because I know you’re dying to know. Cadence music – various Praise tunes (mainly Our God Is an Awesome God and Celebrate Jesus) for a while, then snippets of Sunday in the Park with George, then the script from Three Amigos where Steve Martin is chained up and trying to get free saying “gonna make it, gonna make it” then for a while I sang R rated lyrics to Hickory Dickory Dock, then back to praise choruses.
You can read Goat’s comments here.
You can view photos of the hike here.
Posted by Goat
To quote Barry Manilow, “Looks like we made it…” YEAH! – (sorry for the Manilow reference). This morning we started up the mountain from the front side. I honestly thought, that I would not even make it to the first falls, much less to the lake. I started off with Wally and the first mile is up hill and on asphalt. It was definitely the hardest part of the trip, at least the hardest part of the beginning. More pain was to come. Like I said, I was honestly thinking about stopping at the first falls, but we continued.
At first the trail seemed new, as it had changed a bit since the last time we were there. Mostly due to a big avalanche that was still very evident. After the second falls, where the asphalt stops, we cut back away from the valley for a long trek that was not noticeably inclining, with long switchbacks and water running across the path a few times. We got to the first snowfield in not bad time. We had a few, three I think, to cross, and they weren’t as bad as the other day. With that said, I still slid a bit on one of the longer ones, and again, Wally wasn’t thrilled. This field was right at the beginning of the boulder field- you can’t miss it, it’s huge… we made our way across the field to where we remembered a lot of switchbacks. This is where we had given up four years ago because of a lighting storm that was making its way over the mountain. It looked quite different this time, not only is everything more green and lush around here this year, but the brush had grown considerably over the last four years. We realized where we were and continued up the trail… this was not an easy task as the trails are not marked, so you may not realize that you are short cutting until too late. Now, some of the more obvious short cuts are marked as “not trails”, so those you could avoid. Walking on boulders is not fun, the bigger chunks hurt and the smaller stuff slides. Anyway, we crossed over several streams and even under a waterfall, which Wally, half-liked, but still thought it was a shower, so didn’t like. By the time we got out of the boulder field and through the many, many, switchbacks, we thought that we should be there, but we weren’t. We continued on until we came to a fork, one part went up and around another ridge, while another went down into a meadow. We thought this had to be it, but there were only two pools, and no lake. But by this time, I was extremely tired, so we found a campsite area under some pine trees and took a long rest. We saw some other people taking the trail up and figured they must know where they are going. So after our long break, which I laid down and stretched and Wally ran around, we headed up that trail because we figured that if it were just right there, we would hate to miss it. Tar took Wally for this part. We also ran out of water in our first bladder, so in the process of switching to the second, we popped the drinking tube off and the bladder leaked big time in the pack, and since I was wearing it, I got a wet back and butt. We only lost about a ¼ of the water, but that would mean a lot later. The lake was not just over the next ridge, but it was pretty close, so we made it all the way to the shelter.
We rested there a while as it was quite beautiful! The air was crisp and cool. The water was clear with some blue ice at the bottom of the “glacier”. And then there were the goats! At first I them going over the ridge around the backside trail, and then Tar saw them high on a ridge. We watched them come down this very steep ridge, and across a huge snowfield and then we noticed another group coming from a higher meadow. They all made there way across the stream and up to where we where. Wally loved them, as did we all.
When we finally decided to head back it was 1:20, so we knew it would be a hot one. We were right. The boulder field was Hell, the whole way, even with the behind the waterfall trip, the boulders sucked downhill twice as bad. The snow fields seemed to have grown, but we did have our “YakTraks” that we purchased after our first attempt. They helped, but we took them off after the first field, forgetting about the others, and they were too difficult to get on, on very tight single- track trails of boulders and steep drop offs. After the boulder field, Tar wanted to stop for a break, so we did about an hour after the field. When we started again, I noticed that we had drank the last of the water. Not good, as we were both hot and tired and pretty much dehydrated already. I didn’t tell Tar, as I figured there was no need for both of us to worry about this. With about another 3 miles to go, she turned around for a drink… no keeping the secret anymore. We hiked that next 3 miles pretty fast, or at least as fast as two exhausted, dehydrated, and very sore people could. I kept praying for that very asphalt that I hated on the way up. I knew that once we hit it, we would be almost done. Asphalt feels twice as bad going downhill than uphill, especially on sore, worn out knees. Good news was that we did make it down from the lake in about three and a half hours. A total trip time of 11 hours and some change.
Even though it took us longer than we thought and it beat the tar (not to be confused with Tar) out of us, we are very happy to have finally made it to the lake, which has always been my goal.
Next time we’ll have to hit the summit.
Goat
You can read Tar’s perspective here.
You can view photos of the hike here.
We started on this hike at 7:20 AM. Approx. 6900 feet above sea level.
The trailhead is located in the Timpanokee Campground. It’s well-marked. There’s a trail register at the trailhead, which was kind of neat seeing who had been on the trail recently.
The trail was pretty unremarkable. Easy to follow, easy to walk. It was gently sloping, with a few steep parts. There were a few boulder fields (but you’d expect that on a mountain, eh?), some parts that were covered with scree. In general, though, this trail was quite nice.
<– This is part of the trail, towards the trailhead.
<– This is Goat hiking about midway through.
<– A boulder field.
<– One of the snowfields. This is not as easy as it looks.
<– The view towards midway through our hike, nearly halfway up.
<– So, so pretty.
<– Goat next to the edge of one of the snowfields.
<– This is the one we didn’t cross. It was about 9120 feet above sea level and 5.5 miles from the trailhead. It was around 1:00. (We took a few breaks so Wally could stretch his legs.)
<– Avalanche damage, a tree broken off. This is the top half.
<– This is the bottom half, on the other side of the trail. Interesting to us Iowans.
We hit the car at about 3:30 or 4:00, we walked as fast as we could coming back down.
You can also read Tar’s narrative and Goat’s narrative.
Posted by Goat
WOW! With a capital OW! I’ll just give the highlights, since Tar already posted the details. We started up the back side for a change. I had read that it was supposedly flatter and for a little while it was. I thought this trip wasn’t bad in the beginning, but once we started hitting the snow trails, it became a different matter. One would think that we Iowans have never walked on snow. This is not like the type of snow that we typically walk on. First, the snow we walk on isn’t half melted from underneath with a river running under it. Now not all had a river, but we couldn’t see how deep or what was underneath most of it, so the uncertainty was kinda unnerving… Also, the snow we’re used to isn’t at a steep angle. We did pretty well up to what appeared to be the last ridge, and would have gone up it, but the snow field there was not something that we were willing to try. We had crossed so many (OK, maybe 4) that we just couldn’t handle the nerves of trying this one, plus, remember, what goes up, must come down. So we would have had to cross it again… just like we did with the others. Did I mention the times we slipped on the others? Not each one, but I did on one and Tar did on another. Actually, I think I did twice, once without Wally and once with. Tar’s was with Wally. He didn’t like those much… kept saying “NO, NO…”
The OW part came on the way back. The constant down hill, and then with Wally adding pressure on my hips, and the heat added to a great deal of pain. Once we got back to the trailhead, I found the water fountain with a spigot on the lower post and I stuck my feet under the water until they were frozen. Felt good! Another part of the OW, is typical of new hikes, we had no idea where the trail was or where the lake was, so after every turn, it was always, “are we there yet?”.
We wish we could have made it over that ridge, but maybe when that snow isn’t there anymore.
Goat
You can also read Tar’s narrative and a technical description with photos.
Posted by Tar
Well, Mt. Timp wins again. Story of my life. (But we decided today that our last attempt did not count as I had just borne a child less than 3 months prior to our trip, and that’s a darn good reason for being a wuss.)
We’ve never tried the back side of Timp, so we decided to give that route a try today. I think it seemed a little easier, but the views weren’t as awe-inspiring as those from the front side. I think the Timpanokee trail route might also be longer.
We’ll add pictures and a better technical description at a later date. For now, we’re just each going to blog about our experiences today.
For me, I wore Wally the whole way up the mountain, and part of the way back down. Not to harp on this, but that is almost a third of my bodyweight, and in the Ergo, which I don’t find all that comfortable, I was absolutely miserable for part of the trip. Miserable. I think I even used the phrase “F—ing miserable” to describe it.
And in case you’re curious, my cadence music for this hike was “In my Life” from Les Miserables. Well, at least, the three lines I could remember of that song. Halfway back down, I consciously changed to “A is for Alex” from the Signing Time videos because I was rather sick of those three lines after 6 hours.
The hike itself started off like nearly every other hike here in the Wasatch. The first mile sucked. I think this might just be me, though, because Goat didn’t think the first mile was bad. I think I just need a mile to get into the groove. At about this point, when I was breathing heavily and wondering how I was going to make it another 7 miles up, we were passed by three college students, zipping along like nothing. That made me feel GREAT about myself, let me tell you.
After three or four or ten stream crossings, we came to a snowfield, which I was terribly excited about. I took pictures. Then we realized, well, the trail went under the snowfield and, uh, where the heck was it? Utahns apparently do not believe in marking their trails very well, because we never saw another trail marker after the trailhead. We did find the trail again, though, with very little effort.
Then we were passed by a power hiker, shortly before the next snowfield, which was Ginormous. We considered ourselves fortunate that we could follow this dude to see where he went. The funny thing was, he didn’t falter a single step across the snow. Just step step step step. (This is not like walking on snow back home, which is usually level. This is a snowfield on the side of a mountain, if you slip, you slide down the mountain.) We slowed waaaaay down and gingerly picked our way across the snow, nearly fainting when we realized that we would have to walk over a snow-covered stream.
See, the water melts out from UNDER the snow. So there’s a stream under a few feet of snow, or at least you hope it’s a few feet. All the hiking books – as well as signs at trailheads – warn of how dangerous this is, since the snow can give way underneath you without warning, plunging you into frigid water below with no way out. I’m sure the danger is not as bad as all that, but what do we know? We don’t live here.
Anyway, we made it across the ginormous snowfield OK, as well the next one. At that next one, we looked up to find where our trail was going and saw that it appeared to go over another snowfield about a mile or two up. Except this snowfield appeared to be very steep. We decided to hike to it and see if it looked as bad up close, and also to see if we could tell how close we were to the top.
Well, it did look as bad up close. People had crossed it, obviously, and if we didn’t have Wally, we would have, as well. But one wiggle from him at the wrong time and it wouldn’t have been pretty. You’ll see when we get the pictures up. So, disappointed though we were, we decided it would be best to head back. We were at 9120 feet above sea level (the peak is 10,500 or so, we started at around 6900) and 5.5 miles from the trailhead.
We did get a look at some pink snow, which is actually caused by a fungus that is slightly radioactive. Interesting, eh?
We booked it back down, took a break at a clearing for about a half hour to let Wally stretch his legs. (He walked for a short portion of the way up, but wanted to use the binocs, and is really bad at walking AND using binoculars. We gave him a choice of walking or having the binocs, and he chose binocs.) After the break, we hoofed it nearly as fast as we could go until we reached the trailhead and the hot hot car. We were SO tired.
As I type this, it is 8:30, about 5 or so hours after we finished, and I can’t be still for more than about 10 minutes without paying a huge price in muscle soreness. I have a bottle of Arnica waiting for me in the tent.
For the record, our other attempts have been:
2002: We were about a mile or two from Emerald Lake when it started to storm. We’d kept our eye on the dark clouds coming over the mountain for a while, and when we started to see lightening, we headed back down. Though we were very disappointed, we still agree that we made a smart decision, especially for being quite unfamiliar with mountains and weather patterns.
2004: This is the aforementioned shortly-after-childbearing hike. We walked a pathethic mile or two to the first falls and turned around. We also, for some reason I still don’t understand, felt compelled to carry Wally in the Kelty Kangaroo pack (a Snugli-like soft front pack). This was the one and only time I’ve ever worn that carrier, which we purchased on clearance for $5. IT SUCKED.
One last note – I think that the hike to the top is not as hard for most people as it is for us. First, we huff and puff in general with the altitude. This year, since we were coming from Colorado, it wasn’t as bad. Second, we are carrying Wally, which is fairly difficult, especially since we don’t have a good frame pack that we can both wear. But I think Mt Timp is very doable for most people, without toddlers!!
You can also read Goat’s narrative and a technical description with photos.
Posted by Tar
The Doughnut Falls trail starts from the same trailhead as the Cardiff Mine trail, except it follows an actual trail, and not a road.
A sign posted at the trailhead noted that the falls are on private land, and the Forest Service does not have a right of way for most of the trail, and requests that trail users respect the private property. It strongly leads you to believe that you should not visit the falls, but we (and the approximate 20 other people we passed) completely ignored the advice. More about this can be found here. I did not see any No Trespassing signs, nor any indication of where we were not allowed to go, so I think we were in the clear?
This trail is very poorly marked, but is still fairly easy to follow. Look for the empty signposts (we assumed that the posts used to have trail markers, but when the property owners started asserting their private property rights a few years ago, they took them down). Somebody has written TRAIL with arrows on most of the signs, so that will help. When there is no post, go straight.
The first little bit of the trail is steep uphill and rocky footing. Then the trail turns to the right and gets easier to walk. Cross a few bridges, and you’ll eventually come to the two large graffiti-ed rocks that are also visible from the Cardiff Mine trail. Keep going and, around a few curves, and you’ll reach the stream and the first of your many (fairly easy) challenges. Climb down the rocks to the streamside, then continue upstream. Several yards upstream, you’ll need to cross the stream. Pick your path – we chose to cross over the logs, but several others chose to pick a path through the rocks.
I’ll stop to note that crossing a wide, fast-moving, freezing cold mountain stream with a squirmy two year old on your back is HARD. I had my hiking poles which helped a lot, as I was able to use them to help keep my balance.
<- Crossing / We Made it! -> 
<–The Goat took a picture of every footstep across the stream
Many people chose to continue up to the very top of the falls, climbing on rocks and scrambling up the last bit. We chose to stop after the stream crossing, as I was not about to rock climb with Wally. (And one “helpful” woman felt the need to point out to me that she didn’t think we should attempt the final ascent with a baby. Well duh.)
But the falls were quite pretty, and it was very cool and breezy there. After a few minutes, we picked our way back to the parking lot. BTW, Doughnut falls is so named because the water falls through a hole in the rock, making the rock look somewhat like a doughnut. Or so I hear, because you apparently have to be right up there to really see it.
<- The Falls
Total Mileage: 7.8 miles including Cardiff Mine, 1.3 just Doughnut Falls
Total Time: Over 4 hours including Cardiff Mine, about an hour just Doughnut Falls
More info about the hike here. Most other websites have been taken down…
Posted by Tar
The Cardiff Mine trail starts from Mill South Fork B (check this) trailhead. You can reach this trailhead via Big Cottonwood Canyon, turning south at the Jordan Pines Picnic Area spur road. This is also the trailhead for Doughnut Falls (which we also hiked).
The Cardiff Mine trail is really an old mining road.
The trail goes up to a few old mining buildings and the entrance to the mine itself, which has been boarded up. From the trailhead, you follow the road you drove in on and will shortly pass a gate intended to keep motorized traffic out. (We were passed by some ATVs, though, so I guess the gate doesn’t always work.) From this gate, it’s about 2.5 miles to the mine entrance.
Not more than a half mile in, there’s a fork in the road – the first of many. Looking down the left fork, you’ll see two big rocks (which were covered with graffiti on our visit). Taking this path will actually lead you to the Doughnut Falls trail. To get to the mine, go right.
The road forks several more times – generally speaking, always pick the one that looks most like a road. (Or that goes the most uphill!) There were a few stream crossings that, during our visit in early July, were not bad at all, and we were easily able to cross on tall rocks without getting wet feet.
At about 2.5 miles, there is another fork in the road. Looking to the right, you can see an old mining building. Head up the trail a wee bit more, and there’s another mining building (or what’s left of it) and the mine entrance. We actually walked past this on accident, thinking we needed to head up the trail a bit more. This added a full mile (steeply uphill) to our hike! Yikes. So here’s a hint if you decide to go: If you see a tall wooden structure on your right as you’re huffing up a hill, stop, turn around, and take the other path!!
<—- Don’t walk by this! Click on the pic for a bigger image, the wooden structure you can see on the left is also part of the mine.
This trail was listed as easy in the description we read, and perhaps it is if you’re from Utah and used to the elevation and Wasatch hiking. We flatlanders, however, found it to be moderately challenging. It wasn’t all that technical of a trail, and the path was wide and relatively easy to follow, but the trail itself is difficult to walk. The surface, which is mostly scree (loose rocks of all sizes), is hard on the feet. Heading up to the mine, we encountered a few stretches that were fairly steep – and it was all uphill. Heading back down from the mine, though gravity was on our side, the footing was still challenging.
Other thoughts? We left at 9:30 and got back around 1ish. The way up, we had plenty of shade, with one long stretch (about a mile) that was exposed. The way down, with the sun directly overhead, we had precious little shade and it was HOT. The mine buildings were cool to see. We’re going to find out exactly what the Cardiff Mine mined. We guessed copper or iron, based on the reddish rocks and water. There was also a beautiful waterfall at the mine area, and the path largely followed a rushing mountain stream. The views were pretty, and at one point I looked up and was a bit startled at the beauty of the scene around me. Mountains, trees, wildflowers, some great vistas.
<—This is the entrance to the mine.
On the way down, we passed a family – grandfather, mother, and two sons. One of the kids, about 12, told us that his grandfather was the owner of the Cardiff Mine. Whether he was or whether we wasn’t, we are not sure, but it was an interesting encounter nonetheless.
Total mileage: About 6.5 miles. Would have been closer to 5 if we hadn’t detoured.
Time including rest breaks and time to explore the mine area: 3-4 hours.
Cadence music: I think I’ll go for a walk outside now, the summer sun’s calling my name….Everybody’s smiling – Sunshine Day! From the Brady Bunch.
For another description of the trail, please see this website, which is where we originally got the directions for this trail.
<—- Sleeping Wally
Update: More Photos here
posted by Tar
Alberta Falls and Bear Lake Hikes, RMNP, Colorado
Today we hiked to Alberta Falls and Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. This was a super easy hike, made challenging only by the altitude (to which we are unaccustomed) and our two year old, who was tired yet insisted on hiking by HIMSELF!!
<— This is, of course, Wally hiking by himself. Yes, he has his own poles.
We started at the Glacier Gorge Junction Trailhead and headed first to Alberta Falls. The trail was a slight uphill, very wide and with a compacted gravel surface. It was very scenic, with nice views of the stream much of the way. The falls were a little disappointing, as the view was of the side, and rather obstructed by rocks. It was still pretty, but not the best mountain waterfall I’ve seen.
<– The trail & Alberta Falls –> 
Wally hiked the first part of the trail with his hiking poles, then tired of the poles, then tired of walking entirely. But when we arrived at the falls, he wanted down, so we let him wander a bit. Off trail exploring is allowed in the RMNP in most places, so Goat just followed him around for a bit while I took some pictures of the falls, and then took pictures of a few families for them.
The hike back down was that strange combination of easy and difficult that most downhill walks are. The hike was a total of 1.2 miles round trip.
Once we reached the junction with the Bear Lake trailhead, we decided to go ahead and head down to Bear Lake. Or, up to Bear Lake to be more accurate.
<— The trail to Bear Lake. Looks very similar to the trail to Alberta Falls.
This was not a bad hike, but it was mostly uphill and I was carrying the dead weight of a sleeping two year old (30 lbs, a third of my own bodyweight). The lake was pretty, and has a wide, pressed dirt, accessible path around it. See, Iowans seem to believe that paths must be paved to be accessible, but they are not similarly afflicted here in Colorado.
<— This is of course Bear Lake. Very pretty Alpine lake, mirror-like.
The hike to the lake, around the lake, and back added just over a mile to our hike. Grand total today was about 2.5 miles. Not bad for the first day in a high altitude, IMO!
More photos here.
Posted by Goat
So… after a beautiful drive up the Fall River Road up to the Alpine Visitors Center, all while Wally was fast asleep, we decided to take the very well traveled trail to the top of the mountain. Everyone and the little brother was walking up this trail – or down the trail. We decided that it would be a good way to start off our high altitude hiking, and at 12k + feet, we’re talking HIGH altitude.
<– We’re high up!
<– The trail and its many stairs. Though it looks deserted in this picture, it wasn’t!
I had Wally on my back and Tar had the backpack with the hydration system in it.
Talk about thin air… I’m not to big to admit that it took a bit a bit out of me and I had to stop several times, which was funny in a way, because this was not a difficult hike.
By the time we got to the top and decided to head back, the clouds had started to move across the mountain and so we were suddenly in the middle of a cloud.
<— You can see the clouds rolling in as we watched.
Not many people seemed to worried about this, nor were we, except that the cloud was very warm, and it had previously been very cold. But no lightning strikes for us.
Anyway, the trail was pretty much just a dirt/loose gravel path with wooden ties forming stairs, some short, some tall, which really only mattered coming down.
After getting somewhat used to the altitude, it was a very pretty view, no matter where you were on the trail.
Not one that I would brag about, but definitely a hike/walk that is a must do if you’re in the area.
<– Tundra
<– This is my idea of the Rocky Mountains!
