After the previous day’s adventures on Mt. Evans, we made the 90-minute drive westward to Breckenridge, CO, where we planned to stay for a couple of nights before our next scheduled stop in Durango. After Chris caught up on work during the first half of the day, we decided to spend the balance of…
Since we’d first decided to make the detour through Colorado, we’d been looking for a way to hike a 14er, that being the enormously popular thing to do here. Somewhat surprisingly, all our hikes in CA have been below the 12,500′ level, and Jane’s personal elevation record (for hiking) was just under 11,000′. Over…
We had several options to choose from for our final day in the Rocky Mountain NP area – complicating matters was the timed entry permit requirement. We knew that the Longs Peak trailhead did not have a gatehouse where entry permits would be checked, but we’d also heard that the parking area fills up…
Having driven through the town of Estes Park the day before, we today decided to return and explore the community itself – as one might imagine, timed entry tickets for Rocky Mountain NP were impossible to come by on Labor Day weekend, but there were numerous hiking options outside the park boundary we expected…
How we came to find ourselves in Colorado bears an explanation. Chris had spoken at a conference in San Antonio the previous week, and we had made the drive from California to Texas in advance of that event. Hoping to garner some consulting work following the conference, we wound up embarking on a road…
Day 3 of my Bear Creek trip saw me rise at first light, followed by a leisurely morning consisting of several cups of coffee and a light breakfast as I watched the creek tumble over Twin Falls. There was literally no sign of the previous night’s rain – everything I could see looked completely…
Day 2 of my solo trip up Bear Creek saw me up and about before sunrise, enjoying my morning coffee while the first rays of sunlight hit the ridges around me and gradually illuminated my campsite. By 8am, I was ready to head out upstream and explore my little valley – indeed, I believe…
This trip wound up being a solo affair, and I’ll write in the first person for a change. The hike up Bear Creek has been on my radar for several years now, the biggest obstacle being negotiating the 2.2-mile 4wd road leading from Mono Hot Springs to the Bear Creek Diversion dam. Earlier in…
After a week-and-a-half in Redmond, WA, we were looking for something to stretch our legs and get outside. Chris’ sister, Anne, met us at Chris’ mom’s apartment in Redmond Ridge and offered to show us the walking trails in this neck of the literal woods, so the three of us headed out just after…
We had spent our second night of the drive to Seattle in Salem, OR, and the temps outside were below freezing as we left our hotel. The skies were sunny but there were many patches of low, dense fog in the area that reminded us of the tule fog back home. We had looked…