Arches - Day 1

After our Bighorn Mountain hike, things got real busy.  The next weekend we climbed all the Boulder mountains from South Boulder Peak to Mt. Sanitas in one long death march - as preparation for our rim to rim hike of the Grand Canyon.  The next day we moved to a new apartment.  Perhaps not the best planning.  The next Sunday we left Boulder for Moab, Utah.  We had decided to visit Arches National Park for a few days on our way to the Grand Canyon.  After entering Utah on I-70, we took the shortcut along the Colorado River:

The drive along the river was awesome.  Each view seemed better than the last.  I had never been in this area before, and the rock formations were mesmerizing.

It was going to take awhile to get to Moab if I kept stopping every few minutes.
We could see the La Sal Mountains as we drove further along:

At some point I decided I had taken enough pictures of the river, and we pressed on towards Moab.  After stopping to reserve a campsite along the river, we wasted no time checking out Arches NP.  After walking around Balanced Rock, we drove towards the Window Arches.  Along the road we passed the Cove of Caves:

A little further along, we got to the end of the road and the parking lot for the nearby arches.

There were a ton of people huffing and puffing on the short trail to The North Window.  This is apparently one of the tour bus stops.  Once under the arch, we climbed up a little ways for a better view.  My ultrawide angle lens really came in handy on this trip.

The South Window Arch is right next door, and the Turret Arch a short distance away.  A little further down the path we got this view of the two windows:

We decided to skip the nearby Double Arch for the time being, and instead drove towards the Sand Dune Arch.

The Sand Dune Arch was at the end of a short trail that squeezed through a set of towering sandstone fins.  All the eroded sand was trapped between the walls, and a couple of young kids were playing with little shovels and buckets as if it were the beach.  We left the trail and climbed higher through the fins to do some exploring:

After climbing back down, we hiked over to the Broken Arch, before making our way back to the car.  The next arch we came to was the Skyline Arch:

This arch was especially awesome, because despite its proximity to the road, there were very few people that bothered to walk down the quarter mile path.  The afternoon light was sublime, and we even found this blooming cactus nearby:

After a quick stop at the Fiery Furnace, we drove to the trailhead for the Delicate Arch - along with apparently everybody else in the park.  The Delicate Arch is probably the most iconic arch in the park, and photos of it are widely reproduced.  I figured the light would be good in the late afternoon, and it would be less crowded.  Well, so did everyone else.  Apparently this is a recommended sunset hike and this information is prominently displayed in park literature.  After passing a bazillion people in the mile and half from the parking lot, we finally made it to the arch:

It was incredibly hard to take a picture without getting a whole bunch of people in it, as a disorganized line formed near the base of the arch full of people hoping to take all manner of inane photos underneath.  After soaking in the arch for awhile (with at least a hundred other people), we decided to head back and eat some dinner before it got dark.

On the way back out of the park, we drove past Balanced Rock again.  In seeing it from a different angle, Laura remarked that it was a "way better balancing rock" than the actual one, before realizing her mistake.  The late afternoon light plus the dark storm clouds made for a much better photo than earlier in the day:

Back at our campsite, we discovered our tent had blown on its side.  Had it been any less secure, it would have been floating down the Colorado River.

After staking it a little better, we ate a mediocre dinner of gnocchi and bad pesto.  After redeeming the meal with chocolate covered pretzels and other snacks, we went to bed just after sunset in preparation for an early departure the next morning.

Bighorn Mountain

Back in late April, Laura, Juanma, and I made our way to RMNP to climb Bighorn Mountain.  Bighorn rises above the Lawn Lake trailhead and can be seen prominently from Horseshoe Park and Deer Ridge Junction.  While it's only about 4 miles and 3000 vertical feet to the top, there is no trail to the summit and the bushwhacking makes it a more arduous hike.  Bighorn Mountain in the fall:

Bighorn is supposed to be a good place to see sheep, and I had climbed it back in September with our friend Aaron and his buddy Lucas in hopes of viewing sheep mating or some other awesome behavior.  The elk rut had us all excited to see some Marty Stouffer style ram action.  We hiked about 3 miles up the Lawn Lake Trail, before bushwhacking east up the mountain.  It was a relatively straightforward hike, but we didn't see any sheep mating nor did we see any sheep at all.  Perhaps it would have helped if it was actually mating season...

Laura and I had attempted the same route in mid-March, but the snowshoeing proved too difficult once we left the trail, and we gave up after a little while.  This time I decided we should climb straight up the steep cliff-filled south slopes of the mountain, since they would have little snow.

While steep, it was a perfectly good route, and we reached the top of the first major cliff about an hour after we started.  We had a great view to the south of Horseshoe Park, Trail Ridge Road, and Longs Peak:

We had come down a similar way back in September when it was much less dry in the valley:

We continued up the ridge, and some fun scrambling opportunities soon arose.

The climb alternated between rocky cliffs and hiking through the woods until we reached treeline.  After some more unnecessary scrambling, we passed a false summit and finally got this view of our objective, the 11,463 foot summit:

It was an easy tundra climb now, and we quickly made our way to the top.

Again no sheep, but I was surprised to see another group of hikers!  Apparently they had come via the other route, as there was little snow anywhere on the mountain.

We ate lunch at the summit with the impressive Mummy Mountain in the background.  After the wind began to pick up, we retraced our route back to the Lawn Lake trailhead, and returned back to the low country of Boulder.

Flattop and Hallett

This past Saturday, we set out for Rocky Mountain National Park to climb Flattop Mountain and Hallett Peak.  Once again, we picked up Juanma at 6am and were greeted with an ethereal sunrise as we drove into the mountains.  Driving up the road to Bear Lake, we spotted this tom strutting for the ladies by the side of the road:

After a quick u-turn, we spotted some more gobblers frolicking on the opposite hillside.  They looked ready for a Thankgiving feast!  After watching them for a few minutes, we were back on our way to Bear Lake.  It's been so warm lately, that Bear Lake (at 9500 feet) is no longer completely frozen.  Here's a view of the lake and Hallett Peak from later in the afternoon:

Like last weekend, the trail was so well packed that our snowshoes stayed on our backs the whole way up.  We lost the trail near treeline, but after some boulder hopping to avoid postholing, we found the trail again near the Emerald Lake overlook:

In addition to Emerald Lake, we could see Longs Peak and Mills Lake in the distance, plus Thatchtop and the glaciated east ridge of Hallett Peak.  While it was an unseasonably warm day, the sun was obscured by clouds, making it feel noticeably colder.  A little further up the trail, our secret weapon - aka Juanma, spotted something moving across the tundra.  Thinking it was another ptarmigan or pika, we were very surprised to see a weasel!!

After getting out the 300mm beast lens, I moved towards the last spot we had seen him.  After scanning about for a few moments, Juanma spotted him again, and I was able to snap a few photos.  These photos have been cropped quite a bit, as it's pretty much impossible to sneak up and get close to a weasel.

I was amazed I even had the time to change lenses and follow him, since the only other weasel I've ever seen was gone in a few seconds.  We continued up the gentle east slope of Flattop, passing a few pikas and ptarmigans under overcast skies.  I didn't even bother photographing them, hoping the light would be better on the way back.

A couple of hundred feet below the summit of Flattop, we got this view of Hallett Peak and Tyndall Glacier:

Laura and Juanma waited while I examined some sheep tracks:

Once on the broad expanses of Flattop, we made good time towards Hallett Peak.  The wind was stronger here, but nowhere near as bad as the last time - when we were forced to turn around back in the fall.

After passing the head of Tyndall Glacier, we ascended the final 400 feet to the summit of Hallett Peak.  From the summit we had a great view of Tyndall Glacier, Flattop, and the distant Never Summer Range to the north:

After a couple of photos, we bundled up and had some lunch.  Juanma had a thermos of tea that was still a bit warm; it was a most appreciated counterpoint to the chilling wind.

After a short break, we got moving again in order to stay warm.  My plan to photograph tundra beasts on the way down proved to be poorly conceived, as we didn't see any ptarmigan, nor did we see any pikas close to the trail.  Near the spot we had seen the weasel, we finally encountered a pair of ptarmigan: 

We've seen so many ptarmigan lately, I may have to change the blog to "Tales of a Ptarmigan Hunter."  Well, at least in the winter when the marmots are snoozing.

A little further down the trail, we encountered this pika chillin' on a rock:

Once back in the woods, I decided to take a "shortcut" straight down the mountain - bypassing the many switchbacks we had climbed earlier.  Thankfully we had the snowshoes, as we began postholing badly soon after leaving the trail.  It was fun to zip down the mountain through the snow, and soon we were back at Bear Lake.  Driving back, we were on the lookout for a good elk sighting.  There was a distant herd near Beaver Meadows, but the best sighting was at the golf course in town:
 

We've seen elk on the golf course plenty of times, but never while people are golfing!  At one point, an elk on the green just missed being hit by a golf ball!!  It landed near his feet and he looked around rather perplexed before moving on.  After giving Juanma a true Estes Park elk experience, we headed back to Boulder and a well earned nap.

Mt. Audubon - Take 2

This past Sunday, Laura and I finally attempted another winter ascent of Mt. Audubon.  We were better prepared this time, with ski goggles for the wind, and our new secret weapon: Juanma.  Juanma is a new postdoc in Laura's lab from Spain, and an avid mountaineer.  We arrived at the winter trailhead just before sunrise, and soon afterwards we were greeted by this view of Audubon on the road to Brainard Lake:

With no major snow in over a month, and near record high temperatures for the past few weeks, there was very little snow on the road.  Even though there were some large drifts, the road was so clear that we were passed by a couple of clever backcountry skiers riding bicycles.

In fact, the snow was so well packed, we didn't need the snowshoes at all on the way out.  We left them in some willows at about 12,000 feet and continued straight up the gradual east slope of Audubon.  It's been many months since we were at such a high elevation, and we could feel the thin air as we huffed and puffed towards the summit.

Finally at the top, Juanma surveys the view to the north, including Longs Peak and RMNP:

Our goggles proved unnecessary, as it was a perfect day with very little wind.  Before eating our lunches, we posed for a picture with Paiute Peak in the background:

We decided to follow the trail on the way down, in search of the snowfield that had been our first ever glissade last year.  While there was significantly more snow up here last July, we were still able to get in a few runs.  Juanma led with his ice axe and experience, with Laura following behind:

After exhausting our glissade opportunities, we cut across the tundra in the direction of our stashed snowshoes.  Leading the way, Laura walked right past this ptarmigan duo:

Juanma, also an avid birder, explained the bird with the red patch above the eyes was male.  I had never even noticed that some (all females) don't have it.  A view of the female:

These ptarmigan were not at all disturbed by us, and I was able to take a LOT of pictures.  They were also quite vocal, making frequent clucking sounds.  Here the male saunters right past me:

The ptarmigan diet isn't particularly nutritious, as they eat quite a bit of grass.  We saw a lot of woody looking poo which Laura identified as being ptarmigan.  They were nibbling dry grass the entire time we were watching them.

The female does her best snow impersonation:

The male looking especially plump from the front:

After a few unsuccessful attempts to leave which resulted in even more picture-taking, I finally retrieved my pack and got ready to go while Laura and Juanma watched the moving ball of snow:

Soon afterwards, we retrieved our snowshoes and reached the last steep section of the mountain.  Juanma broke out his axe, and rocked this awesome glissade:

Due to the steepness and our lack of experience, Laura and I just walked down the slope.

Once back in the trees we strapped on our snowshoes, as the snow was getting soft and we didn't feel like postholing our way back to the road.  We saw very few people on the way back, as the poor snow conditions kept most of the skiers and snowshoers away.  Hopefully the mountains will get some more snow this year, but it looks like winter is pretty much over down in Boulder.  For our finale, we stopped for some delicious Glacier Ice Cream to celebrate what felt like a perfect summer day.