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Tag: continental divide

San Luis Peak in the La Garita Mountains

Saturday & Sunday, September 12-13, 2015

Since Diane needed to stay home this weekend to get some school work done, I was on my own and decided to climb my sixth and final new fourteener of the year. After looking over my maps I settled on hiking to the summit of San Luis Peak (14,014) in the La Garita Mountains near Creede. Instead of taking the standard route up Stewart Creek from the northeast, I chose to follow the Continental Divide Trail north of Creede to the south ridge. Not only is this route a little shorter, I also thought the views along the Continental Divide would be better. Plus, I had never really stopped in Creede before and thought this would be a good opportunity to check out the area.

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Redcloud & Sunshine

Friday & Saturday, July 17-18, 2015

This weekend Diane had to stay home so I set out on my own into the San Juan Mountains to finally climb my first 14ers of the year. I planned to hike to the top of Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak bright and early on Saturday morning. I left work early on Friday and after stopping for a late lunch at Handlebars in Silverton, I continued up the Animas River to the top of Cinnamon Pass. I parked at the pass and took a short warm-up hike to the top of Cinnamon Mountain, an easy 13er. Short hikes at elevation and sleeping above 10,000 feet really helps me get acclimated quicker.

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Huron Peak

Saturday & Sunday, July 12-13, 2014

This weekend I set out to climb my first 14er of the season. I chose to try Huron Peak since it’s in an area of the Sawatch Range that I haven’t really spent much time in, plus it’s not supposed to be too difficult of a hike which would be a good warm-up for me since I haven’t hiked at this elevation since last summer. At 14,003 feet, Huron Peak is ranked 52 out of the 53 ranked peaks over 14,000 feet in Colorado. I had originally planned to climb Huron Peak over the Fourth of July weekend, but unfortunately I got a pretty bad cold that kept me home for that entire weekend, so I was looking forward to making it up this weekend.

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Grays & Torreys Peaks

Saturday, July 21, 2012

I left work at 11:00am on Friday, finished loading up the Jeep and made my way east on I-70 to the Front Range. One of my personal goals for the year was to hike to the top of three 14ers, so I decided to try and hike the Grays Peak and Torreys Peak combo to knock two more off of my list. I made it to the Stevens Gulch trailhead around 3:00pm and found a nice campsite nearby. Had I arrived later in the evening, I doubt I would have been able to find a nice campsite right near the trail. There were a few sprinkles of rain in the afternoon, but they only lasted for a short time. I spent much of the evening reading and relaxing. The sky stayed overcast until I went to bed around 9:00pm, so I didn’t even bother taking any photos around sunset.

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Beating the Heat in the San Juan Mountains

Saturday & Sunday, June 23-24, 2012

After spending a few hours in the morning at the Shavano Valley Petroglyph Park near Montrose, we continued driving into the San Juan Mountains to get out of the heat for the weekend. Shortly after crossing over Red Mountain Pass we turned down the road along the South Fork of Mineral Creek and found a campsite for the weekend. After setting up our camp we drove through Silverton and made our way up Cunningham Gulch to the trailhead for the Highland Mary Lakes. As soon as we passed through Silverton the valley started filling up with smoke, and by the time we reached the Cunningham Trailhead the smoke had become pretty thick and there was even a little ash falling from the sky. We would later learn this smoke was from a wildfire that had started near Mancos.

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