I reached the trailhead from Big Pine in early afternoon, stowed my extra food in one of the bear boxes, and made the hike on the trail from the backpacker lot. This trail is more scenic than hiking the road, but I can’t think that it is necessarily any faster, as you have to gain maybe a couple hundred feet as the path winds across the hillside, only to drop it all to reach the creek, where the trail splits. On my way out, I took the road. Read more…
I felt the urge to write this trip report for two reasons. First, because the southwest ridge up Ellingwood is a very cool route. But we don’t really have any documentation of it on the site. So, this felt like a good chance to highlight its many enticing features. And second, because the Lake Como road is NOT a cool route. And in spite of how much documentation exists in the world about how much it sucks, I still feel the need to remind everyone of what a nightmare that road still is.
Scot, no stranger to well planned out adventures (he’ll be the first to admit they aren’t always well executed), sent out a feeler email earlier this year for a 4 day loop in the Grand Canyon. With the inevitable kid #2 on the way, I knew my chances of pulling a trip like this off in the near future wasn’t going to be as easy, so I bit. My buddy Jeff, an old friend of at least 30 years, had just moved to Denver (great timing) and was up for an adventure. Keep reading…
Last weekend Rick, Kyle and I packed into Sand Lake in the Sangres and picked off nine thirteeners over a three day span. The linkups were long, the peaks were rugged, and the weather did its best to make things interesting. We ultimately left the area a bit humbled, but happy to have pulled it all off. Sandwiched between the Great Sand Dunes and the Crestone Group is a long, curving drainage known as Sand Creek. Best accessed from the Wet Mountain Valley over Music Pass… Read more…