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Tag: rocky mountains

Grand Mesa Fall Colors 2018

Fall Colors 2018 | Sunday, September 16, 2018

After a quick trip up to Imogene Pass in the San Juan Mountains on Saturday morning I wasn’t planning on going anywhere else for the rest of the weekend. However, when I saw that the fall colors were looking pretty good this early in the season I figured it would be worth it to take a quick drive up onto the Grand Mesa later on Sunday afternoon to catch the sunset. It turned out to be a pretty good decision! Originally, I was planning on heading up to the Grand Mesa after work one day during the last week of September like I usually do, but now I’m sure if I had waited until then it probably would have been way too late! While there were still plenty of green trees up there, and there were also groups of trees that had already dropped most of their leaves, I thought there was a really good mix of colors that looked nice. I also saw more reds and oranges than I usually do up in this area. Here are a few photos from our evening on the Grand Mesa.

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Imogene Pass Peaks

Friday & Saturday, September 14-15, 2018

This weekend I decided to stay close to home and only go out for one night since I needed to spend some time getting prepared for an upcoming river trip that I’m leaving for in a few days. I ended up going on an quick overnighter into the San Juan Mountains between Ouray and Telluride so I could hike to the summit of a few peaks near Imogene Pass. It’s actually been a few years since the last time I drove up to Imogene Pass, so I was looking forward to checking it out again. I left after work on Friday, stopped for a quick dinner in Delta and ended up making it to the top of Imogene Pass shortly before sunset. During my drive up to the pass I did have to wait for a group of 18 Jeeps to pass me since I guess the Jeep Jamboree was going on this weekend. I would also have to wait for another large Jeep Jamboree group on my way back down on Saturday. From the pass I watched and photographed the sunset before driving back down into Imogene Basin and finding a spot to camp for the night.

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Stewart Peak from the Cebolla Trail

Saturday & Sunday, August 25-26, 2018

Since our plans for last weekend changed at the last minute we decided to try and hike Stewart Peak in the La Garita Mountains again this weekend. Stewart Peak is actually the highest thirteener in the San Juan Mountains at 13,983 feet and is the second tallest thirteener in Colorado. I believe it was even mistaken as a fourteener at one point in history before a more accurate survey proved that wrong. The weather forecast for the weekend was looking wet and stormy when I checked on Saturday morning, but it also looked like a typical summer monsoon pattern and I was hoping we would have just enough time on Sunday morning to get our climb in before the storms arrived.

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Sultan Mountain & Grand Turk

Saturday & Sunday, August 18-19, 2018

Originally, Diane and I were planning to climb Stewart Peak in the La Garita Mountains together this weekend, but she wasn’t feeling well when we got up on Saturday morning, so I changed plans and headed down toward Silverton by myself instead. When we woke up on Saturday it was actually raining pretty good in Grand Junction which is something we haven’t seen much of in quite a while! I checked the weather in the mountains and found out that it was storming there as well, but the storms were expected to wind down later in the day and Sunday was supposed to be pretty dry. Since I had to wait for the storms to die down a bit, I left home later in the morning and then made my way to Red Mountain Pass where I decided to stop and hike up into Spirit Gulch on an old mining road that is no longer open to vehicles.

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Mount Shavano & Tabeguache Peak

Colorado Adventure 2018 | Thursday & Friday, August 9-10, 2018

After spending the morning hiking around Hancock Pass, I headed down to Pitkin and then made my way over to US 50. My original plans were to head off into the San Juan Mountains for a couple of days before returning home, but I decided to stick around the Sawatch Range for one more day so I could hike to the summit of Mount Shavano and Tabeguache Peak on Friday morning before the weekend crowds arrived. Since I had been hiking in the mountains all week and I was pretty well acclimated by this point, I figured this would be a great time to climb these two fourteeners. So instead of heading south into the Cochetopa Hills, I headed east over Monarch Pass.

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