A few weeks back I took Jax down to the Winfield area and ticked off the “new” LiDAR 13er that sits to the south of Huron Peak. It was a nice day out, and one of the only peaks I’ve hiked up to this point in the summer. A few years back a group of us scrambled across the Apostles Traverse, hitting West Apostle along the way which happened to be my final 13er in the Sawatch Range (at the time). Fast forward a few years and LiDAR elevation adjustments have added/removed a few dozen peaks to the list, including several additions in the Sawatch and even one in the Gore. Keep reading…
Twelve years ago lordhelmut put up one of his old legendary TR’s about a trip into the Gores. Their crew did a series of ridge runs that day, culminating in a connection between Peak Z (13,327′) and the “barnacle attached to Z’s backside,” Peak Z Prime (12,975′).
Times were much simpler back then. And as such, the unbridled enthusiasm of virgin Gore summits combined with the pre-apocalyptic internet era inspired Brian to publicly christen Peak Z as “Deion Sanders Peak.” This was due to the fact that since Deion believed he “deserved a salary that equaled a QB’s, Z-Prime probably feels it deserves just as much respect and attention as its larger, ranked neighbor.” And so naturally, the connecting ridge between Z and Z Prime became “The Prime Time Traverse.” Keep Reading…
For the past several years Steve and I have kept up the tradition of heading down to the San Juans in October and picking off a couple peaks before the snow files. This year we were short on time but managed to get down to Lake City for two days of hiking, hitting “Sundog” Sunday afternoon and then a fun string Monday on 12ers Dragon’s Back and Dolly Varden Mountain before finishing off with a pair of 13ers to the east. It was a short, sweet trip, made worth it by the prime fall colors in the area and the exciting scrambling offered up by Dragon’s Back.
Dragon’s Back is a striking rock pinnacle that sits south of Blackwall Mountain, just east of a small tarn feeding into Cow Creek. It’s notable as one of the more interesting Colorado 12ers, being a stiff class 4 scramble via its easiest route with many more difficult options on other flanks of the peak. Steve had already climbed Dragon’s Back several years prior but enjoyed it enough for a repeat. I was just happy to have a fun scrambling challenge to look forward to on what was otherwise a fairly pedestrian day of hiking. Keep Reading….
At the end of August Steve Cummins and I motored down south to participate in the ninth running of the Telluride Mountain Run. It’s a race that offers three different distances (13, 24 and 40 miles) which traverse the ridgelines and peaks above town. All three courses are pretty tough relative to most other races of the same lengths due to the elevation gain associated with each (5,000, 9,000 and 14,000 feet respectively). In fact it’s tough to find a race as steep as this one anywhere in the country in terms of vert-to-mileage ratio in addition to average elevation above sea level.
Saturday morning at 5:30am rolled around and those of us running the 24-miler were off from the Telluride Town Park (with Steve running the 13-miler, I wouldn’t see him until the end of the day as his race started at 8am). I didn’t get to the start line until 5:32 and thus set off a few minutes late behind the pack of runners, following the headlamps south from town into the mouth of the Bear Creek drainage. Keep Reading….
