Ben and I concocted this eccentric loop because I’d already bagged Spread Eagle and its two northwestern neighbors, unofficially named Silver and Cloud peaks. But we both needed Rito Alto and Hermit, and the couple reports of the unnamed peaks along the ridge west of “Mas Alto” lake, along with zero beta on the ridge connecting it to Hermit, enticed us to decide on an itinerary of Hermit Peak, Eureka, then 028, 060 and 062, followed with a climb to the crown jewel (for height anyhow), Rito Alto. Keep reading…
It had been far too long since David and I had gotten out together for a backpacking camp trip…two years ago we were backpacking in Patagonia and Spain, and I’m not sure I had been out “true-camping” since then! It was well past overdue and David organized a small weekend trip for us outside of Vail up to Deluge Lake in the Eagle’s Nest Wilderness. We left Saturday morning around 8:00 – made a few quick stops for camp food, getting a headlamp back from a friend, batteries for said headlamp, string for dem bears, and Subway sandwiches before making it to the trail head by 11:30. Keep reading…
We bring it on ourselves. Primarily resulting from the activities we partake in and the way we go about pursuing those activities. The idea was simple. Climb capitol in a day from the car going as light and fast as possible. Now I’m not talking Andrew Hamilton fast, but deliberate fast. At the last “first Friday” block party in Golden I mentioned this idea to Carl and he agreed it sounded like a fun day. The last time he climbed capitol without skis was like 8 years ago and he wanted to revisit the peak, he was in. We chose a couple weekends with some weather flexibility and a plan was set. Keep reading…
Explosions in the distance were going off as I rolled out of bed at 1:00 AM on a Sunday. That might be the only time in my entire life I have been annoyed by the 4th of July. Much as I do not usually mind a bunch of high-schoolers lighting off fireworks in the middle of the night, it was an annoyance when trying to catch some sleep before a big day. The concert and midnight bedtime the night before were not helping either. Oops. I guess that one is on me. I silently reminded myself that if Andrew Hamilton can climb 58 peaks in 10 days on basically zero sleep (a record which was in progress during our climb), I could slog up Glacier Gorge for some rock fun on 1 hour of it. Keep Reading…
