This time we took some friends up to Mt Washington. It was their first ‘big’ hike, so it was great seeing them experiencing it. We got a little bit of rain towards the end, but hardly even worth putting on a rain coat. Trail on alltrails.
About time we post something here again. Been long enough. It’s not like we didn’t do anything, but we certainly reduced outings during the pandemic. With both of us being vaccinated now, we are a bit more open to heading out again. The first hike this year was Mt Passaconaway via Dicey’s Mill trail (-> alltrails ) We weren’t sure how our fitness levels would stack up, but it seems we did some things right in terms of working out and it wasn’t actually that bad.
This weekend we finally tackled Mt Washington. While it took us a bit longer than we expected (about 12h round trip). In the end it was a rewarding hike, with some nice views on the way up and down. The top was in clouds… It was interesting to go from high 50s to low 20s and back in a day. This was also our first taste of winter this year, looking forward to skiing!
After some quiet days with a lot of scattered rain, we hiked up to the Willow lakes. It was another 3000ft elevation hike, but we felt a lot better than before. Also the first time we really started in the dark (with headlamps), which was interesting. We didn’t run into any wildlife though. They were probably scared by all the (bow)hunters we saw. Fab trying hiking poles for the first time;)
After having a little recovery after the big hike, we did a small loop to Rainbow Lake after work. On the way back on Masontown trail we encountered Tony. Tony was generally friendly and didn’t say much. However, he was also quite adamant about us not continuing on that particular trail. We ended up taking a little detour. In case you’re wondering, this is Tony:
On the 6th day we finally did another big hike. We decided to go with a loop around Mt Buffalo (https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/colorado/gore-range-trail-to-meadow-creek-trail-loop). It ended up being 13.2 miles (21.2km) and 3400ft elevation gain (1036m), since we used a different trail head than in the linked map. We started before sunrise and had really beautiful views on the way up. This time with more pictures of Fab ;) Sunrise through the trees: Sketchy bridges: Mt Buffalo: Fab in front of Mt Buffalo: Looking towards Red Peak: Melting water lakes: Fab taking pictures ….
On our fourth day in Summit County we decided to try and tackle Peak 1 and the Tenmile peak. Emphasis on ‘try’ as the altitude did beat us in the end we turned around short of Peak 1 summit. Of course not without having enjoyed a lot of great views past Victoria summit. Overall we still managed to do about 3400ft (1036m) of elevation in a little over 6 miles. Definitely felt a lot better compare to our short outing before.
On the second day we worked our regular East Coast hours, so we had some time to explore in the afternoon. For starters we went with a very short trail: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/colorado/meadow-creek-trail-to-lily-pad-lake We didn’t quite expect the elevation change to impact us so much, but as it turns out, we’re also dependent on our red blood cells for oxigen delivery. As a result even the little elevation change was quite exhausting. Apparently going from sea level (Boston) to 9000+ ft makes a difference in what we can do ;) Some more pictures: Fab trotting up the trail: Trail: Made a new friend: View onto Dillon: View onto Royal, Victoria, and Peak 1: Lily pad lake:
The new season of Diablo kicking off last Friday’s night made us change our routine of hiking on Saturday and instead hiked on Sunday. We have noticed that usually we hit more traffic on Sunday’s compared to Saturday’s and we decided to wake up at 4 AM to see if that would make our drive back better. I think it did, it was not perfect but better than our previous experiences on Sunday’s hikes.
Back on the East Cost, we jumped straight back in and did one more of the missing 4000s: Galehead. Surprisingly enough, it seems the mosquitos were on some other mountain, pestering the hikers there. We had a nice day, no rain, not too warm. Enjoy some pictures: