Pitkin Lake near Vail, CO

10.45 miles
6 hr 51 mins
No rain
8,389 feet to 11,375 feet
3,238 feet up 3,199 feet down
Total 106.85 miles

Pitkin Lake near Vail, CO

We really want to do our last hike over in Fancy Pass or as we call it Fancy Pants. But sadly Highway 24 is closed due to a collapsed tunnel that runs under the road. Earlier in the week traffic was still able to flow through down to one lane with a flag guy, but I guess they needed to call in the big guns and therefore shut it down to all traffic. So we take Highway 91 up to Copper Mountain and then I 70 down to Vail.

We hiked one of the major slot canyons up to the end of the valley. Here we found an alpine lake at the head of a cirque. The lake was deep and you could see the trout swimming around and surfacing to eat bugs that had the misfortune of landing on the water. I'm not very good at identifying the trout population so perhaps some of our fishing virtual hikers can help us out. The fish I saw were dark grey/ brown tops and then orangey redish brown bellies and lower sides. They were pretty large I suppose ranging in the 8 to 12 inch size. Looked like it would be fun to toss a line in and see if you could get one to bite.

Now let's talk trail. This hike is a doozy of an uphill hike. Lucky for most people who might think they would like to take this hike because it starts with some major uphill right away. Like those signs at amusement parks that warn those with heart conditions to turn back, this first climb is so steep and strenuous you would just turn around right a way and go to town to shop... Of course we at this point in the vacation have seen this type of uphill and although it is not exactly what we had in mind, it will have to do as the road to Fancy Pants (Pass)was closed.

By now in our vacation we have the lungs to do this hike, but I sure am glad this is not our first hike up hill. The hike is listed as a 4.5 mile trip up to the lake. It is not. The person who wrote the trip notes must have forgot that the trail switchbacks many times and this puts extra mileage on your trip. I secretly think they never took the hike and just drew a straight line up the valley and measured it with a ruler. Perhaps they too were virtual hikers.

The first 4.50 miles of this hike are in the deep woods. No views to be had, to bad there were no great smells either. Just a trudge uphill and some breath taking. At the half way point there is a water fall with a nice rock outcropping to sit on and have a snack. We even have cell phone service so we shoot a picture and email it off. The wonders of technology make me ponder why I loose reception on the phone on my drive to Minnesota while on I 90/94, but I can hike up a valley in the mountains and have 4 bars...

Waterfall is halfway point of hike and a nice snack spot.

The last three quarters of a mile the tree line falls away, and suddenly the wild flowers are busting out all over the place. Hey, now this is what we came to see. One just has to take in the view with your eyes. We shoot lots of pictures, but the camera just never does the view the justice that it deserves.

We sit on some large boulders by the lake side and watch fish, look at the lake, talk about our adventure from this year. This trip was a surprise trip for me. As some of you might already know this year I turned 50. Yes, it is hard for me to believe too! 50 .... The vacation for this year was on hold because we did not have a dog sitter for Hattie. Hattie had special needs. She needed a person to take care of her who could deal with the multitude of anxiety issues which Hattie dealt with everyday. So secretly Kathi found a person who could take care of Hattie. With that handled, Kathi began to put together the surprise 50th hiking adventure!

Trees are finally starting to thin out so you can see the valley you are hiking

Looking back towards Vail, that would be way back at the hardly can see mountain

Up at lake looking down the valley

Pitkin Lake

 During January, February, March, April, all I could do was keep looking at pictures of past vacations and trying to think of all the different ways Hattie could go on vacation with us or different ideas of possible dog sitters. I had looked up rentals that allowed dogs, looked up renting an RV, thought about borrowing my Dad's big 350 Ford pick up and dragging a RV trailer around. Every time I came up with an idea, Kathi caboshed the idea. All the time she was secretly making her plans. Nice! And great plans they were!

I think there were a few times when we were taking in our breath taking views up those two fourteen'ers that Kathi breathlessly asked me if I was enjoying by birthday.... Well yes, of course it's the mountains, what could make it better? Everything was perfect!

They look like elephant heads

Paint brush with bluebells

Our car big enough to haul the two of us and 5 additional virtual hitch hikers.
Great vehicle for Colorado's "improved roads"



 Hope you enjoyed hiking along with us again this year.  Now you can sit back and wonder where we are off to on our next mountain adventure :)

Mt. Elbert, Leadville, CO

Tallest Mountain in Colorado

14,433 feet in elevation, last of the nice switchbacks

9 miles
Mt Elbert 14,433 feet
Starting elevation 10,100' highest elevation 14,433'
Total miles: 97.4

Mt Elbert is the tallest mountain in Colorado. At 14,433 feet it is just twelve feet taller than Mt Massive. We started from the North Mt Elbert trail head at 5:50 am. From this trail head it is only 4.5 miles to the top. Sounds like a walk in the park! We had gone to the ranger station and they suggest using the south trail head approach. Usually, I am all about asking a Ranger for recommendations and getting the local scoop on things, but in this case they have two not so in-tune with the local trail system college students attending the desk. I think the two of them tell everyone about hiking around the local lake no matter what the person inquiring is looking for. We want to know more about the hike up to Mt. Elbert. The two jr. rangers want to send us over to the south Mt. Elbert trail because apparently it is less steep. They have not factored in a few other details. First the trailhead is 30 miles away compared with 10 miles up an "improved road". The trail they suggest is longer and has an additional 200 feet of elevation to gain. Oh and the real kicker is, if you drive anything less than a 4x4 than you will have to park further away and walk an additional 1.1 miles to get to the trail head. Those National Forest Service jr. rangers are a little coo coo. Even I can do the math on that! We plan on going up the steep way.

The trail started out nice and level. That level lasted until we took the picture of the trail head sign. Approximately the first 23 feet of the trail is level. This is where they put the Mt. Elbert information trailhead sign. After reading the signs that are posted you peek around the the board and sort of notice some nice switchbacks. These switchbacks lull you into thinking this will continue to the top. After about a mile of nicely pitched switchbacks the Colorado trail and the Mt Elbert trail split. Here ends the lovely switchbacks. We actually loose elevation winding around the mountain and then begin what the trail will really be like. You stare into the face of a wall that looks steep. It is in truth steep. Breathtaking actually. Yes, lots and lots of breath taking. You just keep going up until your lungs and heart are screaming at you, then you stop and rest, and repeat. When standing and resting we only rested until our heart rate was back under control. Control meaning: I was able to notice a slight pause between one heartbeat and the next. I think if you would have listened to my heart with a stethoscope it might have sounded like a snare drum roll... We tried never to stand to long as getting back into the breath taking zone is then even harder. We take this breath taking approach all the way up through tree line. When we reach the last of the trees, we take a break and have some snacks. As we are snacking we can see the trail etched into the side of the mountain and it looks steep. The first of the three false summits is in view, and it looks very well...breathtaking...I like knowing that there are going to be multiple false summits. That way you are not so overly disappointed when you find way more mountain to go up.

If you enlarge this you can see people coming up the "less steep" way
They are walking on the ridge.

Up

More up



More up

We get back started and slowly make our way to the top. At one point we are wondering if we go to the right or left. We choose left. Next thing we are putting away our hiking poles and hauling ourselves up and over large boulders. The hike has now turned into a climb. I personally don't remember reading anything about scrambling and climbing up any part of this mountain. We stop to share our misery. As we are having our sharing moment we see a highway of people moving on a trail about 50 feet below us. What they are hiking on looks much like a super highway and here we are standing clinging to the boulders. What! how did this happen? We down climb to get on the super highway. Ah yes, much better!

Last 800 feet

Making it to the saddle we are encouraged by people who are coming down. They all have encouraging words, saying we are almost there. Sure, why it is just another 800 feet and we will be there. Kathi is slowly melting, her happiness meter has fallen to unhappiness. I think she used the phase that I coined last year, "you call this fun?". This clearly does not sounds like Kathi! We pull off the super highway and do some self medicating, we eat Luna bars. Food always helps.

A little food and we are off taking in our last 800 feet of breathtaking views and are standing at the very top of Colorado. Now this is were the breathtaking can take on a better and kinder definition. Ridge tops of mountains for as far as you can see. Now this is truly, stunning breathtaking views!

Kathi tried to sign us in on the paper in the the special shatter proof container, but someone had lost the screw on top and the enclosed paper was mostly soggy bits and pieces of scraps. Seems as though most people had signed whatever tid bit of paper they had jammed into their pockets written their names on it and then shoved it into the tub. People do not usually carry paper with them on these types of hikes so there were lots of wrappings from food people had consumed with their names on them. This seemed rather anticlimactic so we just took some pictures and called it proven as we were holding up the dated sign... A guy who had followed us from the parking lot and then passed us while he stayed on the super highway and we got momentarily off trail and went four wheel scrambling on the boulders, had brought up to the top of Mt Elbert a dated sign to hold while taking pictures. He happily shared it with all who wanted to hold it up for a a quick picture. We also found the survey marker and took a shot of that.



Sign in tube with just bits and scraps
Notice there is only one cloud



July 12th 2012



Survey marker



Several people at the top, Clouds gathering we have only spent
30 minutes at the top.  Things change fast up here :) 

View from on top

Looking towards Mt. Massive

As with all good hikes we get in some good chit chat at the top. We meet two men from Minnesota, one from Duluth the other from Minneapolis. They were on a mountain biking and hiking week of vacation without their families. They of course were trying to do everything that they could fit into the week. The guy from Duluth gave his personal account of the recent flooding that has taken place in Duluth with 9 inches of rain in 8 hours or so. Yikes. He said the road around his place was just newly laid and totally washed out. So he and his neighbors used the washed out gravel from the new road and built berms around their houses to keep their houses from flooding. Fast thinking.

Clouds were gathering so we headed out after spending a half hour chit chatting at the top. Just as we were leaving a guy wearing skimpy running shorts came bounding up to the top. The two Minnesotans along with Kathi and I had a good time commenting on that outfit! Kathi shot a picture to share with us all. We were wondering where he might carry his insurance card just in case he hurt himself while running on the rough terrain? I can't imagine running up this mountain and I just as sure can't even dream of running down it. If I ran down the mountain It would only be a matter of time before I became a tumbling object. Oh the thought of that makes my knees and feet shudder.

Runner with only skimpy shorts and a water bottle

Just as we arrived at tree line, it began to rain, so we tucked under a pine tree and put on our rain gear. The rain in the area lasted about 10 minutes. We were able to take our gear off after about a half hour. We have so far been very lucky to avoid being caught above tree line in a thunderstorm this year. We had the not so pleasurable experience to be in one of Colorado's famous thunderstorms and there are no words for the terror and panic you feel when you know you are in the exact spot the storm is in...

With such a " short" hike we arrived back to the car by 2:30 just in time to have the second half of our lunch. Personally satisfied we drove off to do the second half of the driving mining tour. To liven up the Silver Kings tour I think they should include pictures of what the mines looked like during their heyday. The brochure provides a short historical background and facts about each of the mines along with a number map and directions on how to get around. So you drive to the mine and read the narrative and all you see is some pile of mining tailings and a some timbers sticking out of the pile at odd angles. Perhaps including what the mine looked like back when it was operating would really perk up the tour... But sure as we drove around it was amazing to think that they were able to find gold, silver, lead, zinc and what all else and get it out of the ground and off to market. The pictures in the Leadville history book sitting on the coffee table back at our cabin had some nice pictures of the different mines and that was rather helpful in imagining what all took place here. 

Front entrance of cabin

I usually talk about where we are staying. This year we are staying in a miners cabin that was built during the heyday of the mining craze in Leadville. It is very cute and has an interesting feel to it. The one of the interesting "feels" is the bathroom. It makes me chuckle every time I am in that room. I am 5'6" and can sit on the toilet that is, if I be very careful not to bang my knees on edge of the tub. But anyone taller than me will have to sit side saddle. The tub is an iron cast, claw foot shorty tub. It is just large enough to stand in. Forget sitting in it because it is too small for that, just enough room to stand. Stepping out after taking a shower is an adventure. You have to hang on and step over the tall sides of the tub and then reach way down with your foot. The floor of the tub is around 10 inches above the floor. And as you might imagine with the toilet being so close you have to be mighty careful of where you put your foot down lest you take another rinse in the toilet! I thought you might enjoy that tidbit!



Back entrance and deck of cabin

The owner of the cabin has a house in front of our cozy cabin. They have a fenced in yard where they let their 6 chickens free range around the yard. Those of you that don't have free range chickens are really missing out on some live, but slow entertainment. We had the pleasure of watching them every night.

We are headed back to Denver tomorrow so we spend some time trying to find a suitable hike to finish off the vacation. The road we want to take is closed so we spend about two hours reading and researching our last hike. Thankfully we have Internet and our hiking books, we spend the night considering our options, travel time to the hike, hiking time, and driving time. We make a choice, but would prefer to go on a different hike, but think the drive it me will just be too much.

Tune in tomorrow for our last hike.
How are your virtual blisters doing? I have managed to keep my blisters in check this year. Only two, and very manageable. I have finally found how I need to pre wrap to prevent them rather than after they have blossomed... Hmmm it took me till 50 to figure that out. 

Native Lake, Leadville CO

Native Lake With part of Mt Massive in background

8 miles
10,774 feet starting elevation 11,870 feet highest elevation
2,192' elevation gain 2,169' elevation lost
Total miles: 88.4

We took the Haggerman Pass road out of Leadville to the trailhead for our hike. A few more miles driving on the Improved Road and we would have been to the top of Haggerman Pass which was the original way people went from Leadville to Aspen. I can not imagine taking that road in some older car as again they had rumble strips for 3.6 miles of the way. My impression of this improved road is that it is about two inches skinnier than the wheel base of our car. There is a steep drop off on my side of the car, so I am hoping Kathi drives on the left side of the road.

When we arrived at the trailhead we were the only car. I really like to see people out on these hikes so I am always wishing for a good amount of people, but not so many that we have to go and find overflow parking.

The trail up and over the divide to Native Lake is a very nice well switchbacked trail. You can divide the hike into sevenths. Up 1,500 feet of switchbacks, across the divide -so no gain, down 800 feet of switchbacks, hang out at the lake, return back up 800 vertical feet of switchbacks, across the divide, and then back down the last 1,500 feet of switchbacks. Simple, easy relaxing. Yes, today Kathi and I decided we should have a "recovery day" after taking on Mt. Massive yesterday. So what better hike to do than one that we would have good views of what we did yesterday.

Mt Massive

Relax

Lake View

Who said hiking is hard work

When we arrive at the lake we tried to find a way around to the other side of the lake to a rock outcropping that we can see. After twenty minutes of looking we found the trail was simply lost in muck. There was no sense in getting wet and muddy to just gain a rock outcropping so we settled ourselves in on some nice rocks on the southeast end of the lake. Here we had a snack and then dug out some reading material that we brought along. We spent a good hour and half just lounging in the sun and reading. We had the whole lake to ourselves. Very relaxing.

Before leaving we ate half a lunch and headed back up the trail. Repeating or retracing our exacts steps that we took to get back to the lake. We had some nice views of Mt. Massive on one side of the hike and nice views of the Haggerman Pass going down the other side. 


The whole day we saw two bunnies, and just within a mile of finishing today's hike we ran into a young couple with baby in one of those hiking baby backpacks on the guys back headed out to the Lake. They were happy to hear that the trail was nicely designed with plenty of switchbacks.

Indian Painbrush with burnt log in background

After our hike we bounced back down the improved road and regrouped before going to "finish shopping" the main drag of Leadville. Last night's shopping adventure consisted of buying ice cream. Hmmm, that is the kind of shopping I can really get my mind and taste buds around! I wonder what we will find to eat, I mean shop, for today?

We stop at the Chamber of Commerce to pick up a driving tour map called the trail of the "Silver Kings". Leadville is a very interesting town with a very active mining past. As just a quick over view, gold was discovered in the California Gulch by some dude out panning in a stream in 1860. Over the next five years over 8,000 prospectors arrived to take their aim at striking it rich in the gold rush. During that time more than $4 million dollars of gold were panned or sluiced out of the area. The gold diminished, and the silver boom began in 1880. The town of Leadville flourished up to 30,000 people to become the second largest city in Colorado during that time frame. The town must have been a lively place as it had over 100 saloons, dance halls, gambling joints and brothels!

Silver began to diminish and the mining for zinc, lead and copper picked up. But most recently the mines of Leadville produce over half of the worlds supply of Molybdenum. Ok, if you are like me you have no idea what that is. Molybdenum or Moly as it is called for short, is a metal with many uses from steel making to agriculture. It is an important metal in both the industrial world and our daily lives. Used in the hardening of metals, fertilizers, and something to do with X-ray and mammography to name a few things.

Leadville has also played a large part in the training of the Tenth Mountain Division for WWII. The army needed a place to train men for winter survival and skiing for the war effort. The site of Camp Hale was chosen. In 1945 after two years of training for mountain survival and warfare, the Tenth Mountain Division was sent to Italy to spearhead an advance of the US Army. In a series of actions the Tenth Mountain Division breached the supposedly impregnable Gothic Line in the Apennines and secured the Po River Valley to play a vital role in the liberation of northern Italy.

By the time the Germans surrendered, the Tenth Mountain Division had suffered 992 lost lives and 4,000 wounded. This is the largest causality rate of any US division in the Mediterranean theater during the WWII War. For further info on this please visit: http://www.visitleadvilleco.com/camp_hale

This last winter, Kathi and I read a book called The Boys of Winter, The Life and Death of the US Ski Troops during WWII". Much of the training for those young men took place around the mountains of Leadville. Since we had been close to those areas last summer, we started doing some research to see what was available for us for hiking. Then when we found the area had two mountains at 14,000 well, who could resist bagging two?
Here is a direct link or if you want you can just borrow it from us :)
http://d188rgcu4zozwl.cloudfront.net/content/B003MC5DHI/images/cover.jpg

Mt. Massive, Leadville CO

Signing in for an early start!

Facts
10 hours
Starting elevation 10,100 feet highest elevation 14,421 feet
Gained 4,410 feet
14 miles round trip
Total miles: 80.4

The alarm went off at 3:30 am. I think I was already awake as I was sure an airplane was going to go right through the house! I guess we are kind of close to the airport. I only heard one plane, so perhaps that pilot made a slight error in altitude?

We got ready for our attempt to go up Mt. Massive in a quick 30 minutes. Then we decided that we simply must have a cup of coffee before going, so we quickly made a small pot and medicated our caffeine fix. The thought of starting with a caffeine headache and a high altitude headache was too much

Yesterday we practiced the drive to the trailhead. When arriving in Leadville yesterday we were not sure where the Mt. Massive trailhead was or how long it would take to get there from where we are staying. Driving around lost at 4 in the morning is never a good idea, so we read several printouts that we had in our trip folder and ambled around until we found the correct set of roads. The access road is woven through a national forest and has lots of camping available, but only the kind of camping where there is no campfire. Due to the very dry summer, Colorado has posted that the fire danger is very high so no weanie roasts allowed. Although we could ease everyone mind by reminding them that Penny and Kathi are vacationing in Colorado, so you can count on rain to put out the fire...

Since we are all practiced up on driving back to the trailhead we hit the road with confidence. Confidence that there will be only cars headed into the trailhead at this time of day. You see the trailhead is about 6 miles back on an improved gravel road. I think they use the word "improved" here in Colorado with little regard to the meaning of improved. True this road had gravel. True, this road has been graded sometime since the last year, but let's not use the word improved. It was 6 miles of rutted, washed out gravel, occasional boulders sticking up out of the road, and just to keep the speeds down they maintained a heathy batch of rumble strips that ran the entire 6 miles. No seriously, the washer board ruts went the entire 6 miles. Yes, improved is an interesting word choice.

Improved or not we were the only car on the road at this time of the morning. I guess everyone else slept in. Since Mt Massive is a 14'er you are advised to get an early start so you can get up to the top and back off before afternoon thunderstorms. The thunderstorms here can really rock your socks off so you can bet Kathi and I heed that early start warning. Headlamps on, we lock the car and hit the trail at 4:50. The trail is rather nice for the first 3.5 miles. In fact you could call it improved! You only gain 1,000 feet in altitude so it is just a walk in the park. Oh, yes, with headlamps on and lots of clothes as it is 36 degrees.

This part of the hike took us about an hour and half. We put away our headlamps and took off some clothes as the serious uphill was about to start. The views we have once the sun rises are of the surrounding mountains, the town of Leadville, a large lake named Turquoise Lake, Twin Lakes, and Mt Elbert. We have the delightful songs of a single coyote singing a lonesome solo off to our left somewhere. We make a mental note to find out what sort of things a coyote might be singing about at 6 in the morning. I hope it does not translate to " hey, coyote friends, I spy two ladies that we could rustle up over on Mt. Massive..."

That is Leadville is way down below

We"re headed up to the top

We don't see another soul out hiking until just before we get to the final basin before the saddle of Mt. Massive. Some young billy goat of a hiker blew by us like we were standing still. Well perhaps we were standing still when he went by as we might have been trying to catch our breath.

We were able to keep climbing up to the saddle of Mt. Massive with billy goat hiker showing us the way. He was scampering back along the ridge line of the mountain while we were just making it to the top of the saddle. Mt. Massive is really three mountains standing all together. They are all above 14,000 but only count as one of the Colorado 14ers. 

Kathi and I really one want to get to the one that is the tallest. So we have to do some ridge walking to get to the last peak. I think there was only one section were both sides of the mountain had fallen away and we were on a section as wide as a sidewalk to work with. No need to panic and hug the ground, just look at what you are doing and believe that if you can manage to walk on a sidewalk, then you should be just fine here. The scramble on this mountain is really what I had expected to find on Long's Peak last year. I believe the Rangers words were: oh yes, it is reasonably as wide a a sidewalk with proven foot and hand holds to help boost you along your way... Instead we found the path as wide as a balance beam with a sheer drop off on one side. Perhaps when the Ranger said sidewalk he actually meant for us to walk sideways sliding one foot along at a time. I don't know it is just a passing thought. But what we are on now seems like a cake walk! As my kindergarteners say, " easy peezy lemon squeezy!"

Sign your name!

Standing on top of the second highest mountain in CO

Ta Da!

At the last peak we find the special 14ers tube. Attached with a cable to a sizable rock is a shatter proof tube containing an iffy pen and a tightly wound wad of pages. These pages are filled with hurried and cheerful signatures of those people who have climbed to the top of this 14er. I pull out the signing sheet and record that Kathi and I had made it to the top. We sit up there and have half a lunch. We are joined by a father, son and their dog, a young fellow from Iowa, and finally by a guy who was out practicing for the lead man contest. A 50 mile trail run, a 10k run, a 100 mile run, and a marathon. Sounds fun? Forget it, thats sounds more like the deadman not the lead man.

Time to leave and start heading down. The trip down seems long. As with all of our hiking trips we seem to find someone to strike up a conversation with. And true to form we run into three backpack hikers who were doing their first section ever of the Colorado Trail. The Colorado Trail runs from Denver to Durango. The three people we were talking to were a father, his adult daughter and a family friend. We talked about all sorts of fun things like great hikes they had been on, 14ers they had been up, and which 14ers sounded like they might be fun to go up. We also spent a good amount of time talking about everyone's Long's Peak adventures. Most all hikers in Colorado have a funny story about Long's. We spent well over a half hour just chatting.

Looking towards Maroon Bells

Time to keep heading down. We make the total trip including chatting time in 10 hours.
We head home to shower up and go out for dinner. We end the night in the hot tub.

 What a great day.

Aspen sunflowers on Mt. Massive