My Colorado Travelings

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Two [First Night at GSDNP]
We made it there around 5:30 p.m. after leaving around 5:30 a.m. We found our reserved campsite. It turned out to be pretty nice. We later had some noisy neighbors, but the overnight rain took care of that problem later.
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Anyway, we set up camp and cooked dinner. It consisted of the food we had brought and cooked on the grill--hamburgers and Pringles potato chips.
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We walked out to the dunes. We did not climb, but just hung out on the dune side of Medano creek. The weather was unsettled. The clouds were fantastic.

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After 30 minutes or so, we headed back to camp for the night. We would hike the dunes in the morning.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Three [Hiking the Dunes]
The clouds had rolled in overnight. They were especially dense over the dunes. Our views would be diminished, or so we thought...

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While we had been disappointed not to be able to see out into the distance, the cloudy conditions made for a unique, almost haunting, experience. It made it difficult to navigate by sight, so we used GPS to find our way to High Dune.
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We made it to the top of High Dune. Despite the name, it's actually the second highest dune in the park.
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[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Four [Continuation of the Dunes]
We started on our way back down after hitting High Dune. The weather and the upcoming drive we had to make that afternoon drove our decision.
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The sky started to clear up on our way down.
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We packed up camp. We made a stop at the visitor's center. We ate lunch on the road. We drove further west, to Lake City.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Five [Handies Peak Ascent]
The next day we made our first 14er ascent. We planned it out to be Handies because of the relatively short (5 mile) roundtrip.

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We made it to the top. We headed down after spending some time on the summit.
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Our first climb was a success. We headed back to our campsite at Silver Creek.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Six [Redcloud & Sunshine]
We had two mountains scheduled for the day after Handies. Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak are connected by a Saddle. It would be a 13 or so mile day. It's like getting two mountains for the price of... one-and-a-half. Kind of.

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We started before dawn. Being above treeline for the fist light of the day is one of the rewards for an early start.
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On top of Redcloud, looking over toward Uncompaghre and Wetterhorn.

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Looking over the saddle toward Sunshine, from Redcloud.

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Another view of Uncompaghre (the big block one on the far right) and Wetterhorn (the tallest one on the far left).

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Looking at Redcloud from Sunshine.

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Re-summitting Redcloud.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Seven [More of Redcloud & Sunshine]
Looking out over Sundog and the western sky.

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Columbine.

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And we made it back to camp. We broke camp just as the afternoon rain started. We moved to the other side of Lake City, at Nellie Creek.

 

[Farfrumwork]

Excellent pictures! really nice

 

[TripLeader]

Excellent pictures! really nice

Thanks. Here comes some more of that trip. I hope I can get it all posted soon. I've also been going back and re-sizing the previous photos. I hate the thumbnail version that it used to default to.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Eight [Alpine Loop]
The next day we hit the Alpine Loop. I'd been on it twice before, as you may have seen on the previous thread pages. It was new to MD and OD. Our first stop was Carson City.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Nine [Alpine Loop]
Our next stop was at the Frisco Mill at Animas Forks.

 

[TripLeader]

August 2019

Part Ten [Animas Forks]
The next stop was "Downtown."

 

[TripLeader]

Aug 2019

Part Eleven [Alpine Loop]
We took in a couple of more views. This was looking out from Gold Prince Mill.




We continued with the drive. We had come over Cinnamon Pass to get to Animas Forks. We left over Engineer Pass.


We got back to camp after 8 or so total hours on the Alpine Loop. The next day we would be back to 14ers. We looked over route for the following morning before going to sleep.

 

[Farfrumwork]

Very cool all around the Alpine loop.

I like elegant decay as well (structure west of Animas Forks)

 

[barongan]

Nice photos, thanks for sharing

 

[TripLeader]

Nice photos, thanks for sharing

Thanks. Hopefully I can get the rest of the 2019 trip report knocked out.