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Month: June 2015

Illinois Storm

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Here’s a little something different from my usual adventures in Colorado and Utah. We spent last week visiting Diane’s family in Milwaukee and my family in Illinois and did a lot of interstate driving, so we weren’t able to get out hiking at all. I almost didn’t even bother to bring my camera with me on this trip, but I’m glad I did when a thunderstorm moved through the area near my sister’s house near Sandwich, Illinois shortly before sunset. Here are a few of the photos I took.

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Twin Peaks

Saturday, June 13, 2015

This morning I drove down to Ouray so I could try and climb my first mountain summit of the year. After this weekend I’m going to be pretty busy for the rest of June and I didn’t want to wait until July to get into the mountains for the first time this year. Since I’m not in the best shape right now and the weather forecast was predicting that storms would move into the area late in the morning, I decided to hike to the top of Twin Peaks (10,798 feet), a famous Ouray landmark. There are currently two trails that will get you to the summit- a new trail and an old trail. The reason for this is because in the early 1980’s the Old Twin Peaks Trail was washed out by a major storm. To replace the old trail, a new connector from the Oak Creek Trail was built to bypass the washed out section. This trail is now known as the New Twin Peaks Trail. In 2004 the Ouray Trails Group reconstructed the old trail which now consists of over 300 steps and 1,300 feet of elevation gain within 1.2 miles. Apparently, the Forest Service won’t officially sanction the reconstructed trail because they consider it too steep, but it is back on the maps.

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Snapshots from No Thoroughfare Canyon

Saturday, June 6, 2015

After spending last weekend in Salt Lake City, I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to spend anytime hiking outdoors this weekend since the weather forecast was calling for storms in our area. After some rain early this morning it appeared that we were on the edge of the storm system for much of the day and I would be able to get over to the Colorado National Monument for a few hours in the late afternoon. I decided to spend a little time in No Thoroughfare Canyon today since I haven’t been to that area of the park for a while.

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