Mary's Peak, Oregon Hike - June 21, 2010

Back in June we took a driving trip to Oregon for a family gathering in Portland. After the party we made our way down the coast and were tempted to put on our boots by the opportunity to hike to the highest point in Oregon's Coast Range - Mary's Peak, also noted as a Botanical Special Interest Area.

Just west of Corvallis on Hwy 34 Mary's Peak Road leads you into the Siuslaw National Forest, which was loaded with wild iris in full bloom. The half mile hike begins in an open rolling green meadow with views in all directions. Once we got on the trail, the Fawn Lilies really caught our attention. With only around 500' of gain, this is a very pleasing little hike and a great leg stretch on a long road trip. There are other trails in the area that we'll need to check out next trip.

Une Belle Randonnée dans la Gorge de Tyndall

Earlier this week we had the opportunity to meet two very friendly women from Paris and Provence. Language was no barrier to the smiles and laughter, which came easily to Rosie and Monique, who were happy to be visiting Colorado and hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The hike we chose is the classic Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake route through Tyndall Gorge. Although Rosie initially said she would be up for just 3 hours of hiking, after bagging Emerald, she insisted we add Lake Haiyaha to the list. I think there was also a French joke somewhere in that Native American name, which perhaps someday we'll understand.

We got a late start on the hike, which may have worked out to our advantage because the parking lot was not full and the lakes were not crowded. The weather - superbe! (A word we heard many times from the non-English speaking Monique.)

After the hike, we had just enough time before dusk to take in a very active evening at the Fish Creek beaver pond. The highlight was watching an adult reach up and snag a branch from a freshly felled tree, then swim across the pond with it for four small kits to munch on.

We hope to visit France before too long, and a new hike has been added to our ever-growing list. Rosie told us about the Tour du Mont Blanc or TMB, a trail which goes around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland and Italy. It looks fantastic: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Tour+du+Mont+Blanc

As I write this post, Rosie and Monique are flying home to France. Au revoir et à bientôt, nos amies!

Deer Mountain June 6, 2010

Deer Mountain will always be special to me and Mike, and we try to hike it every year. It is the first hike we ever did together, and because of that, it is the place we chose to be married June 5, 2005.

The views along the trail of Deer Mountain do not disappoint and today was no exception. Not a lot of wildflowers yet, but some Pasque Flowers were still blooming and some Early Larkspur were just getting started. It is hard to beat the near 360 degree view at the summit, stretching from Lumpy Ridge, past Lake Estes, The Town, Longs Peak and all the way around to Chapin, Chiquita and Ypsilon.

Here are some pictures from the hike.

Today began as an unusually hot hike for early June, a good reminder of why it is good to start a 6.75 mile summer hike before 11:30AM! But interesting cloud formations eventually gave way to rain and even some grapple, another reminder to start your hike earlier in the day! After an hour or so, we left headed back down because of thunder, but the rain was refreshing and made our hike back down much more comfortable.

Ouzel Falls - April 27, 2010

Tuesday was so sunny, warm and calm, we just had to get out and enjoy the day. We haven't hiked much in the Wild Basin area just north of Allenspark, so decided to head up to Ouzel Falls. As novice birders, we now know it could have been named American Dipper Falls, but I'm glad they went with the more exotic sounding "Ouzel."

The hike is recorded to have 950 feet of gain over 2.7 miles, but since the access road was closed the distance ended up being a bit longer. For some reason the GPS in Mike's phone couldn't get a lock on our location, so we don't have a trail map or exact distances this time but we think our 7 hour hike covered about 7.5 miles round trip. With an ending elevation of 9,450 feet, the trail was completely snow covered by the halfway point. Micro spikes didn't help with the post-holing, so the hike was a better workout than we'd bargained for.

Just a few minutes past the trailhead, we came to the lovely Copeland Falls and played around taking pictures on the rocky shore. Interesting icicles hung from the edges of the waterfall, as well as from fallen branches near the water. As the trail continued along the North St. Vrain Creek, we passed snow-covered cascades with just a hint of flowing water flowing underneath. I especially enjoy all the little bridges in this area.

Further along, now in fairly deep snow, if was fun to see the "backside" of Longs and Meeker peeking out in bright sunshine to the north. We rested and had our lunch a short distance before Ouzel Falls, which we thought might be completely frozen, but the top section was flowing big time above the frozen ice formations below. It was so great to be surrounded by ice and snow, but no coats needed! We enjoyed our snack of raw almonds and dark chocolate (Green & Black 85%), climbed all over the rocks and generally goofed around for nearly an hour.

Gosh, how could it be almost 4 o'clock already! Gathering up our gear, we headed back down, stopping at Copeland Falls once more to do a long exposure shot in the late afternoon light. We made it back to Estes Park in time to watch the beavers along Fish Creek Road at around 7PM. What a great day!

Crosier Mountain Hike

Yesterday we decided to hike Crosier Mountain, a hike we did in June 2008. We loved Piper Meadows, the beautiful green meadow about halfway up which provided a lovely foreground for views of the Continental Divide. Our enthusiasm for Spring preceded the season, because it turns out in April any part of the meadow that is not white with snow is still quite brown. The trail was a little muddy and slushy in a few spots until past the meadow when we encountered mostly all snow, which made for a much tougher climb to the top. I sure wished I'd packed those micro spikes! We did finally make it to the summit, which was surprisingly calm considering the weather. There was a summit register in a PVC pipe, but one of the endcaps was missing, and the spiral notebook inside was completely soaked.

Various songbirds chirped and tweeted all along the trail, but Dark-eyed Juncos were the bird of the day. We saw tons of them flashing their white tail feathers as they flew around nearly every low lying shrub-filled area. On the way out, near dusk, Mike also spotted a red-tailed hawk landing high in the pines overlooking the meadow.

This trail is horse, dog and mountain bike friendly, but we met only one other hiker all day. His dog had found a large section of deer vertebrae and ribs, which she proudly carried in her mouth. I believe we may have seen some bear and cat tracks in the snow. Any ideas of who made the tracks pictured?

On this hike we were trying out some relatively new photo gear. The summit photo was taken with a new Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 ultrawide angle lens. The bird pictures were taken with a Canon 100-400mm lens we got last month. Mike was also testing a new chest pack to carry the DSLR with zoom lens attached.

This hike was fairly strenuous -- over 8 miles round trip, and almost 2000 feet of overall gain, with a lot of up and down. Here's a map of the area.

P.S. If you like Turkey Vultures, and who doesn't, you might enjoy our photos of the one Mike spotted on the way to Glen Haven, just above the little pond on the east side of the road after you turn onto Steamer Drive.

Penitente Canyon Hike

After visiting the La Garita Natural Arch we decided to hike into the Penitente Canyon.

This was an easy 2 mile hike, although the trail was either very muddy or snowpacked and icy. At almost the 1 mile point we were rewarded with wonderful views of the San Luis Valley and its snowcapped peaks. The rocks here reminded us of Lumpy Ridge.

The canyon was used as a place of worship for the Brothers Penitente and you can the painted image of the Virgin Mary on one of the rock walls. This is a very popular area for bouldering and climbing.

Here are some pictures from the hike.


Here's hiking track/map.


View Penitente Canyon Hike in a larger map

Great Sand Dunes Hike

While Susan and I were down in the San Luis Valley for Cranefest, we took advantage of a gorgeous sunny day to hike again in Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (GRSA).

GRSA has the tallest dunes in North America, and we bagged one of the highest ones, at about 650 feet in elevation. There was some recent snow on the dunes, but it was melting rapidly in the 40+ degree sunny weather.

Here are some pictures from the hike (click on slide show to see the larger album).

Homer Rouse Trail

Susan and I did a short local hike on the Homer Rouse Trail, part of the Estes Valley Trail System. This trail starts just off Fish Creek Road and goes up right past Baldpate Inn to Lily Lake. The total hike was about 3 miles.

We spent a few minutes on the porch of Baldpate Inn, took a few pictures and then headed back down.



This hike is described in Lisa Foster's book on page 258.

Lulu City Hike

Susan and I enjoyed a hike to Lulu City on the west side of the park.

Our GPS measured the hike to be almost exactly 4 miles one-way.

We had good weather even though it tried to rain on us on the way back.

We stopped at Rock Cut on Trail Ridge Road to photograph bighorn sheep, elk, marmots and pikas, plus we had some very nice light as the sun was going down.

Kruger Rock

We have been curious about Hermit Park, so on a recent weekday warm fall afternoon drove down and hiked to Kruger Rock. The fee to park is $6 and we encountered only a handful of other hikers.

All sources indicated a 2.75 mile round trip hike, when in fact our GPS showed the hike to be closer to 3.75 miles.



The hike was lovely with nice views from the south over Estes Park on the way up, and 360 degree views at the relatively spacious summit, which is reached by scrambling between 2 awesome rock walls. Overall this hike is comparable to Lily Mountain, but slightly easier in length and gain, and probably a less rocky trail.

Susan