At the start of every season I usually have a list of things to tick off, be it lines to ski, road trips or hikes. This summer is no different and here are some hikes that I’ve already ticked off the list:
Until last week, I hadn’t completed a 14’er (peak above 14,000 feet – 4,267m) although I did have a crack at one with old Thompson a few years back and we failed.
Mt. Quandary (14,265 ft – 4,348m – nearly double Koziosko which is 2,228m) is a peak in the same mountain range as Breck so it is super close. The team met at the trail head about 5am and we definitely got the best of the day, notice how blue sky turns to nastiness…..
Summit pics and the weather is turning FAST!!!
Time to skedaddle.
Another hike that has defeated me in the past is a loop between Frisco and the Copper Ski Area. Erin and I attempted this last spring and there was a little too much snow. Turned into a complete cluster, 9 hours, a lot of back tracking and Erin lost 12 of her toe nails.
It was my screw up so it has been bothering me for the last 12 months. This time we nailed it,
I can’t believe how much wildlife is in the bush here. This Llama is checking out my beasts of burden…..Lynne and Katrina.
Hiking all day with a couple of pretty girls can be exhausting…
According to Al Gore, there are no glaciers left in the world and it all because my truck gets 8 miles per gallon . Turns out the glaciers in New Zealand are going through an advancing cycle and there are 135 glaciers still in Colorado. So on the way to Denver recently, I caught up with Todd, Ashley and Lynne to check out St. Mary’s Glacier.
It was a really cool place and we will be heading out again in a few weeks with our skis to get some summer turns.
My mate Eric is a bit of a blouse and the night he arrived we had a bit of a shin-dig at the Sanborn Cabin… true to form, Eric was sound asleep after half a whiskey so the girls used him as a yoga prop.
Eric brought up a couple of ATV’s (which are kind of girly) but we had a blast on them and got to check out some high alpine passes that we will be playing on for the rest of the summer.
What about golf? Don’t worry….. I’ll start things off with some fossil fuel enabled golf. This is one of my favourite spots to hit golf balls.
This tee is a wee bit ‘different’.
We are about 4 stories off the ground and this tee box was built in the late 19th century, can’t really blame Andi for wearing a helmet. Andi, Tyler and Eric.
We got told off for not picking up our golf balls, I’m assuming we were polluting. I rather politely told the lady that I hope she picked up her dogs poop. She called my bluff, she pulled a plastic bag of dog poop out of her backpack. What else could I do? I told her in my Australian accent (with a sprinkling of French) to bugger off to where ever she is from and stop bothering us Colorado locals – hahaha.
Then Tyler, Andi, Al, Jarisse and I got to play a round at the Raven. Everything about this day was just lovely. Thank you to the Sanborns for letting me be a part of it.
Since I’m working in reverse order here, the first round of the year was out in Leadville with Mike. I dropped in to see the Dean (that is where I’m technically enrolled), we played golf and went for a ride on this really cool trail through this really shitty town.
We have been bike riding and playing tennis a bunch too. Lots more summer to come and that list of things to do is pretty long so I’ll get back to it.
PS. Last pic is of Erin’s birthday last Friday. If anyone tells you there are no pretty girls in the mountains….. shhhhhhh. Let the flat landers think that. Hahahaha.
