Moonlight Hike

Well I made it out on Tuesday night and headed up to section 16. I started at 8:30pm and finished up around 10:30pm. With the full moon the trail was well lit in most places. I did have to turn on my headlamp in a couple of places.

To answer the question, yes it was a little spooky at first. But once I was moving it wasn’t too bad. I did snap a few pic’s but none of them really came out that well.

Candy bailed on me at the last minute. Don’t blame her though. I had the same thought myself for a little while.

Next time I think I will start later when the moon is a little higher in the sky.

Happy Hiking

Steppin it up!

It's always something isn't it? I had planned on doing the long way to work this morning and remembered I had to take my truck in to have the door lock and other cheap plastic door handles looked at. So I only managed to 3.5/miles in yesterday. The walk back to the Chevy Dealership was a trick. That was the time when the rain broke loose. Being an active walker/hiker I did have my rain poncho with me.


We will see if it clears up as we are scheduled to do Section 16 this evening starting at 8:30pm. We should have a full moon and it should be a blast although maybe a little muddy.

Happy Hiking

Long Way

I managed to get 6.5 miles in yesterday.  Starting on Monday I will be tracking my daily mileage again and posting.   Also I think the 24th is a full moon and think I need to plan a hike that evening.   Will see if I can get anyone interested.

Happy Hiking

Seven Bridges Loop

Mario Mushroom

Today I had two additional hikers with me. Both Candy and Clark committed to going the night before and agreed to be ready to leave the house at 7AM. I think we pulled out of the driveway at 7:50AM.

We drove up to the GCR trail headed and headed down the road to catch trail 622. This time we just kept going. This was the furthest that Candy or Clark had gone on this trail before. We worked our way up and then down trail 667 and up around upper Captain Jacks and then back down to the parking lot.

All in all I would guess we had about 7/miles in today. Everyone did great but I am sure they will both sleep great tonight!

Happy Hiking

Mt. Elbert / Mt. Massive Camping Trip - Day 2

August 3rd, 2010

Well for Tuesday I got up early and headed to Emerald Lake to do a little fishing. I took Mable with me and she just sat and whined. So I took her back and put her in the truck. I will tell you I threw everything I had in my arsenal and didn’t catch a damn thing. Several times I could even see the fish following the lure up to the bank and then turning away.

Even without catching a fish, the morning wasn’t a total loss as I had one of the best laughs I have had in a while. Let me see if I can put it in paper as funny as it was to me.

While sitting on the backside of the lake, I could hear voices of others making their way up from the parking lot. From what I could tell from across the lake it was 5 teenage boys. They were loud and yelling to each other as they all picked a spot to fish. So after listing to them ramble back and forth for a while, all of a sudden one of the boys on the end jumps up, yelling and screaming BEAR, BEAR!

I looked over and all I could see what a big fat round all black Labrador dog. The two kids sitting closest to the boy who thought he had seen a bear were also running half-way down the lake shore. I laughed so hard I was rolling. So was the owner of the dog who starting calling the dog to come back.

Oh, man the four boys really started ripping the kid that shouted bear. The entire episode was hilarious!

It was now about 11am and I decided it was time for me to move on. To go back I had to swing past the kids. As I came across the first one I noticed he had KU shirt on, another had on a Goddard High School shirt. One asked me if I had any luck and I replied no it’s not like Bass fishing in KS. They all perked up and told me they were from Goddard KS. Goddard is very close to Wichita where I lived for a while and often visit family there. I finished with telling them to watch out for those pesky bears! We all laughed.

Being almost lunch time I decided to drive over to Leadville and get some lunch. Also I wanted to get cell phone reception so I could see the morning’s emails. Not that I was going to do anything with the email but just felt like I needed to stay in the loop.

I parked on Main Street and decided to walk the street and get some coffee, lunch and check out a few of the shops. I had some luck as I found a Colorado 1931 license plate in excellent shape. Once I get the Model A on the road I will have this plate registered.

I was back at the campsite around 3:30pm. I went ahead and built a fire and then decided to try my luck fishing in the stream. Again no luck! Maybe it was from all the rain that we had the day before? Last year in September I managed to catch several fish.

The menu for the night was baked potato and steak. Everything turned out perfect and was one of the best meals I had had in a while. Plus I was really hungry and they may have helped everything taste as good as it did.

Luckily no rain this evening and I just kicked back by the fire with the whining dog sitting on my lap. Bed time was about 10pm as I planned on hiking on Mt. Massive the next day.

Section 16 and Intemann Trail

We got a bit of a late start this morning at least late for me. We headed up section 16 and then down the Intemann trail and catching the waterfall spur. No water coming down the fall today but the rock wall was wet.


We had some great views of Red Rock Canyon and over to Garden of the Gods. I didn’t have anything with me today, no camera, water, etc. We did just over three miles. I planned on walking to work tomorrow but will now have to walk from the Chevy Dealership to the office. I have a warning light telling me something needs to be looked at.

Still working on the stories from the camping trip and hope to have day 2 done soon.

Later

Mt. Elbert / Mt. Massive Camping Trip – Day 1

August 2nd 2010


The following day after returning from Cripple Creek I packed up my truck with all the essentials you need when camping. I had way too much camping gear and didn’t use half of it. I keep the camping gear for the family in plastic boxes in the garage. It was just easier to load the boxes so I was to make sure I had everything I needed. Didn’t need four rain ponchos but I needed one, stuff like that.

I hit the road about 10:15AM and was in the campsite I had chosen by 1:00PM, so I made pretty good time. I had to stop at the Coyote Cantina in Buena Vista to get a burrito. They have some decent Mexican Food and worth the stop. I can’t think of a time that I hadn’t stopped in, if I was coming or going that way.

I camped in the Half Moon Campground and had spot #1. It was a decent spot and was kind of surprised that no one had claimed it. It was a Monday though. The only thing that was a bummer was that I had to carry my stuff down a hill about a 100ft. I thought of it as a decent way to work out.

By 3:00PM on Monday I had camp setup and was ready to start enjoying the peace and quite and being unplugged for a while. Well the peace and quite didn’t last long!

I made one big mistake and I won’t make it again. I took our littlest dog Mable with me. She has done great on the trails around here and is overall usually a great dog. But OMG, all she did was whine and whine. She would stop at night when we were in the tent and for the most part of the trip she spent her time in the truck. I put a pillow and towel down for her and she would finally stop and sleep. I’d be sitting on the bank of the lake and she would just sit there and whine. Just sitting around camp she just whined. Very annoying! She did stop when we were on the trail hiking so that was a relief.

After camp was all setup and the wood stacked, I drove down the road to check everything out. Even for a Monday, I was surprised at the number of campers and hikers. It was actually pretty active all four days I was there. Both the Elbert and Massive trail head parking lots were full and you had to use the overflow area. It started to sprinkle so I decided to head back to camp and get the fire going. By the time I was back the light sprinkle and turned heavier. So I grabbed one of the four rain poncho’s and put it on. With a little work in the rain, I got the fire going. The rain letup to a sprinkle again which was nice.

The meal for the evening was bratwurst. I cooked four of them, ate three and gave one to Mable. That shut her up for about 60 seconds. After just kicking back by the fire in the rain and having a few cold ones I headed into the tent around 8:45PM. Didn’t take long to crash, but the old ears were pierced for any strange sounds. I didn’t have to worry about that to long as it started raining harder and I think it finally quite about 2 or 3 in the morning.

Happy Anniversary

Well not sure where to start as I have so much to catch up on. I guess let’s start with our wedding anniversary. On August 1st 2010 we celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary and had a blast!

Our fun began on Saturday July 31st. We loaded up in the truck and headed up Old Stage to GCR and to the St. Peters Dome area. We had done this same hike the year before and thought we should do it again. I had cheese & crackers in the backpack and we even had a bottle of Champaign but decided to leave it behind as we didn’t want to stumble down the side or slip on the rope. This isn’t a long hike but does have some challenging areas.

On our way up the trail in the distance we could hear sound of fire trucks and police. As we climbed we could tell the sirens were getting closer. Once we had reach the top of the dome is when the Flight for Life helicopter came into view and flew around the mountain and soon after followed by another. Hearing the sirens and then seeing the helicopters you know that cant’ be good!

It was a great morning to be out, a little overcast and cool. Once at the top we found a flat rock, had a seat and a little snack while we enjoyed the views and talked about what we had accomplished over these 23 years. We have worked hard and been very blessed and together we have accomplished quite a bit. I know I couldn’t have done it alone. Love you baby and looking forward to many more.

I guess we had been at the top for about 30 minutes when here came the Flight for Life helicopters flying back around the mountain and headed to the Springs. We then heard voices of others coming up the trail. From above we could see that it was a group of two. We started our decent back down and headed to the truck.

We headed down GCR on our way to Cripple Creek. About 4 miles into the drive we found what the helicopters and sirens were all about? Someone had rolled their truck. From what it looked like they came around a corner to fast and fished tailed, then drove into the mountain, up and over they went. (Take it easy folks!)

We got into Cripple Creek just at noon and headed to our Hotel. Oh MAN! We had made reservations at the Carr Manor and wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It is an old High School built in 1897 that has been converted into a B&B. This place was awesome! It has 13 rooms and each one of them is decorated very uniquely and has its own name. We splurged and reserved the Governor Ralph Carr Suite. From what I read, one time Colorado Gov. Ralph Carr went to this school, hence where the name came from.

Our room was so spacious and the furnishings were all very cool. Yes, the fact that it had a hot tub in the room was pretty sweet. We unloaded our bag and then they took us for a tour of the rest of the hotel. We were able to see every room but one. They have done a very nice job with this place and if you are looking to spend an evening in Cripple Creek this is where I would stay. Candy and I are already talking about going back up and spending the night in the room name the principles office. You can visit the Carr Manor website here: http://www.carrmanor.com/

After the tour we ran out for a light lunch and then headed back to the hotel. We had massages scheduled for 2:30 and 3:30. I don’t know why I don’t get massages more often. This is my second time and afterwards both Candy and I were just so relaxed. We kicked back and then headed out for dinner and then we followed that up with seeing a melodrama of “Gunslinger, The Legend of Billy the Kid”. We had a blast booing and hissing the bad guy while cheering on the good guy. Not sure if you have ever been to a melodrama but the more the crowd gets into it the more fun you will have.

We strolled down the street of Cripple Creek and then made our way into one of the casinos. We sat a three card poker table and each made about 100 bucks. We pocketed our money and made a run for it back to the hotel.

We were down in the kitchen by 8am where they had, fruit, cinnamon rolls, egg and sausage quiche ready for all the guests. The breakfast was great and you had a chance to speak to other guests as everyone sat around a big table, different but fun.

Once we checked out we drove over to Victor, CO. to see what little finds might be had. We stopped into two antique shops. The first one we got an old miners lunch box made of tin. We also found an old carbide lamp still in the box. In the other shop we picked up an old DuPont Blasting box. All nice little finds that will go with our already growing antique mining collection.

From their, we made our way home. All in all this was one of the best weekends I have had in a while and you couldn’t have asked for any better company to spend it with. We need not wait a full year before we do another little weekend trip like this one.