Catching up

Well, quite a bit has happened since I climbed that last peak. I went on vacation! And I climbed another local peak.

I didn’t get too many pictures from our little trip. We went down to Colorado for a few days. I needed to get away and I hadn’t seen my family in a while so we went and spent some quality time with them. It was a good time. We spent a couple days in the mountains and then got to hang out at home for a couple days as well. And I got to go to lunch with my dad. Something I miss quite a bit.

Anyway, here’s a picture of me at Bubba Gump Shrimp in Breckenridge.

Once we got home from our trip, I had to work for a couple days. Then it was my weekend again and I took off to climb St. Marys peak just above the inlaws house. It’s one of the more popular peaks in the area and has a fire lookout on the top. It’s a pretty cool hike. Not too difficult but not too easy either. Relatively short though so I accomplished it pretty quickly.

This is the view from pretty close to the top. You’re in the trees for most of the hike. So once you pop out of the trees you get into some great views quickly. This one was one of the first ones I stopped to take a shot of. Then it was on to the top!

This is the actual peak. It’s got a post with a bunch of traditional prayer flags. It was pretty nice to see those though I don’t subscribe to the tibetan religions. It’s still something you don’t see every day when you’re out hiking. This is the first peak I’ve been on with them present.

Proof that I was on the peak. Also proof that I normally have sleeves. This was my first hike in a sleeveless shirt which made a big difference in the heat but also displayed my uber-white upper arms. Oh well, I was sunscreened up and escaped without any sunburns. My goal is just to escape skin cancer so if that means being white, I’m cool with that.

Here’s the fire lookout. It’s pretty cool. There’s actually a guy living in it this summer. His whole job is to sit there and watch for fires. Could be boring I guess but what a great way to spend a summer. Sitting on top of the valley and living peacefully. If it wasn’t seasonal, I’d definitely consider it.

I saw this lake on the way down. The trail is about half a mile away from it but I thought it’d be a cool place to camp out if you were willing to make the effort to get there. Since we don’t have any of the gear we’d need to do that, we won’t be doing it anytime soon, but it’d be cool nonetheless.

The trail rolls right through these trees. I just thought it looked pretty cool. You don’t notice it on the way up because it doesn’t look like anything from the other side. On the way down though you get to see the burned out, dead trees hanging over the trail. So I whipped out the camera and got a quick shot before continuing on.

Here’s the last one for this hike. This tree was pretty cool looking. It was big and (obviously) dead. It appears to have been burned in a forest fire at some point. That’s what all the bubbles on it are from. I liked the way the tree looked so I took a picture of it. Now you get to see it!

So that’s about it for now. I don’t know if I’ll get to take another big hike for a few weeks. We’ve got another trip coming up to go to my brother-in-law’s wedding. I’m trying to figure out a way to get over to Mount Hood for a day or two of skiing. That’d make for a cool blog post and will definitely do it if I pull it off.

I’ll try to get a post or two up before then though.

Standing on top

Last week I got Thursday off for the Fourth of July. Since we don’t get holidays really, I usually end up getting a weird day off somewhere around the holiday. But Thursday’s are a great day to have off because it makes it a long weekend and I avoid one of the biggest papers of the week.

This week, I decided I’d climb one of the peaks in the area instead of hiking around one of the canyons. I looked in the ol’ guide book and picked out Little Chief Joe peak. It was a pretty short hike at 2.6 miles each way. The tough part was that it was listed as “strenuous.” I figured, “How strenuous could it be, it’s only 2.6 miles!”

I was wrong. When they say strenuous, they’re not kidding. It took me almost 4 hours to get to the top… but I made it!

Views from the top…

First up is a view of the valley we live in. From way above it.  If you look close you can see small white boxes. Those are buildings. The peak is above a town called Florence which is about 25 minutes north of us.

I don’t know what peak that is across there… but it had plenty of snow and made me wish I had my skis. If it wasn’t a seriously LONG hike in to all that snow I’d consider it. It’d take multiple days though so it’s not going to happen. Can’t wait for winter.

That’s a really rocky peak over there… Looked cool though.

Then there’s Chief Joe peak. That’s the one right behind Little Chief Joe. It’s pretty big and looks like it’d be fun to climb. I’ll have to see how long of a hike it would be to get into it. I bet the view from the top would be killer.

On the way down I got a quick picture of this little guy. He was checking me out wondering what I was doing way up there.

It was a long hike but worth it. It’s been awhile since I’ve climbed a peak and it was pretty rewarding to get to the top. Not quite the same as climbing a 14′er but fun just the same.

On an unrelated note, I found out over the weekend that I’ve now gotten down to a size 32 pant. I’ve also hit the 35 pounds lost mark. I’m getting pretty skinny finally. I haven’t worn a 32 pant since… high school probably. I can’t really remember when I did. It’s pretty crazy. I’m thrilled though. Means all this work I’ve been doing has been paying off.

This weekend we head out to Colorado for a few days. Can’t wait to get there and spend some time  with my family. It’s going to be a great time.