Hermans Gulch

This is the Continental Divide trail, for
when you get the hankering to hike the
USA vertically.

It's the last day, I just have to have my fix of columbine.

Kathi makes seat reservations on the smart phone,  way out here!

Hermans lake

Walking the Continental Divide trail

Stopped for lunch by the creek

Laurelwood Condo in Snowmass

Condo in Breckenridge, we stayed in the very top.
Should count as extra elevation  for each day!

Ok, this is the last columbine for this vacation

Alpine sunflowers, Hermans Lake in distance

Anyone know the name of this?

Add caption

The trail ends here, No really it did just end right there!

Nice Balance

My little note book

How I keep track of the days events
so I can write it down later.

Today is our last day of hiking, but first we have to make sure we have all of our belongings from our home for the last week. Since we are on the third floor with no elevator, we try to take as few of trips to the car as we can.  One would think that after hiking up and down the mountains, we wouldn't mind going up and down stairs, but when carrying a 40+ pound suitcase an elevator would be nice.  We are on the road in good time and off on our last adventure.  The trail to Herman's Gulch is well marked and right off of the interstate.  In fact for the first mile of the hike the sound of the interstate is all you can hear.  This hike is one of the 100 flowers hikes in this area.  I'm pretty sure I have never seen as much columbine as today.  This is the second hike we have taken this week which has the distinction of a "100 wild flower" label, the first being Mohawk lake.

As we walk uphill we see many shades of paint brush, columbine, delphinium, germanium, wild rose, and a few others I have no idea of the name.  We stop and shoot way too many pictures.  There are a few boggy parts in the trail, but mostly the first part of the trail is a snarl of tree roots.  Once we break out into the open meadow the trail improves greatly.

At some point along the way we remember to stop and use the smart phone to make boarding reservations for tomorrow morning's flight home.  We want to check in as close to 24 hours in advance in order to get the best place in line for bordering position on our flight.  Imagine if you can that we are miles from I-70 in the middle of basically nothing and we are on the internet making seating reservations.  

As we make the final approach to the lake we see two climbers on the head wall snowfield for Pentingell Peak.  They are up behind the lake so they are easy to see. They appear to be working up the side of the snow field and they perhaps are making some switchbacks into the snow.  They have a long way to go with some very questionable skies. We walk past the lake and to the end of the trail before turning around.  When we get back to the lake it is pretty busy now with people all out enjoying the day.

When we get back to the trail junction where we checked in for our flight, we head up the Continental Divide trail to reach a very visible saddle.  Here we sit down, have some lunch, and watch the clouds look worse and worse.  Ok, at some point today we have to face the fact that another vacation is coming to an end so we get moving for the car. We start down and when we get to the main trail we start running into many hikers all about in their 60's.  Seems like there is an organized hike today.  Well of course it is an organized hike, Colorado has so many different hiking clubs and they post who is going to be hiking where.  The hiking clubs usually hike on Fridays.  
As we are hiking down the trail we pass two people sitting on a log.  I ask Kathi it the guy was Scrub Man (the guy we met on top of Mount Cameron on our 4, 14'er day)? Kathi said she wasn't looking who we walked past, ok, well it looked like Scrub's man to me.  We keep moving downhill until we find a nice spot by the waterfall to have the rest of our lunch.  Scrub man and his wife now are walking past us, so we blurt out and ask if he was on top of Democrat, Lincoln, Bross with us.  Yes, that was him.  We chat a bit.  He said he was sore and a hurting man after that big day.  We told home that we did Quandary, Grays and Torrey's also.  He said he had wanted to do Grays and Torrey's but didn't have a 4 WD vehicle to get up to the trailhead on that rough road.  We said he could have hitch hiked up... His wife said he was not good looking enough to catch a ride.  Laugh out loud.

We finish the day at 8.8 miles

Driving back to Denver, we pass 8.5 miles of west bound, backed up, three lane traffic waiting for their turn to go through the road construction at Idaho Springs.  Boy, don't we remember sitting in that traffic jam way back on July 4!

So another wonderful vacation
Hiked over 150 miles
Summited 7 fourteeners in 7/2014
That makes a total of 10 fourteeners out of 53 total.
No blisters, one pulled butt muscle, one broken toe
Next year will have to be something big as Kathi is turning 50... Wonder what we will decide to do?
Thanks for joining our little adventure.
Now it is your turn to take a Step in the Right Direction

Feel free to send any comments.