cyberhobo

Our last day is a hike through rolling woods and meadows. It’s interesting to me how this part of the trail is organized in my memory – a brief sequence of episodes. “Windy trail in trees”, “big meadow”, “trailhead with pit toilets and cabin” – but no details in between episodes. It’s pleasant to return…

We get a nice morning for our climb up James Peak, but then the weather gets crazy. The low clouds to our east come rushing towards the divide, where sheer cliffs lob them straight up into the air like feather pillows. No trail has been constructed on much of the section, and we scurry down…

A long morning’s climb takes us to the summit of Mount Flora, where we begin a detour to avoid a rocky, technical section of the divide. On the descent from Breckenridge Peak we hike some of the most elaborately constructed rock trail I’ve ever seen. The trail then becomes less distinct, but we keep it…

It’s a pretty cold and windy night on the divide, but the morning brings ridge hiking as sweet as it comes. Shortly after this picture Jeremy and Bob startle a mountain goat that flies across the rocky terrain below us. Another tough climb takes us to Stanley Mountain. We try to find camping before Berthoud…

Our newly formed team follows the plan to eat, drive to Berthoud Pass to leave a food cache, then continue to our starting point at the Bakerville exit on I-70. Jeremy and I will each collect a GPS track, Jeremy will take notes and waypoints, I’ll take photos and video. The trail is easy for…

(Congratulate me if I successfully make this post–it’ll be my first foray into the blogosphere….) On Sunday, 7/29 I drove Dylan to the trailhead he wanted to start out at around 9am. No, you don’t get a link to a map, a gps coordinate, or even specific information about what trailhead it was. It was…

I’ve volunteered for the BACKPACKER Magazine CDT Mapping project as a team leader, and my first task is to meet my two team members at Monarch Lake. I figure it’s about 16 miles of hiking, but Sawtooth Mountain looks very tempting, and the trail is quite wiggly on the west side. The elevation profile ends…

We drive eagerly to Piz Badille, new climbing shoes in our packs, but it’s raining. Optimistically, we wade across the South St. Vrain, but it only rains harder and we have to turn back. In the end we settle for a nice hike and car camping near Beaver Reservoir. Somewhere my cellphone falls out of…