Mt Bierstadt

I've been procrastinating about writing this, but I suppose I need to just sit down and power through it.  So here goes... Camping and 14er last weekend:

Stefano and I headed out after work, picked up Christine on the way out of down (she lives west of the city), and headed up to the mountains to a campground (Burning Bear Campground) on the road up Guanella Pass.  Guanella Pass is one of the high mountain passes in Colorado, which normally connects I-70 to US-285.  I say normally, because due to a rockslide, the section from the top of the pass to I-70 has been closed most of the summer.  So we got to take the scenic route up instead.

One of the disadvantages of camping this time of year is that it gets dark so early!  We had to do the campsite setup and reheat dinner in the dark, but we were pretty tired and needed to get up early to hike the next day.  There's our campsite in the photo-- doesn't our car look like it belongs there?

The hike was fun but grueling.  Even though we were at the trailhead by 8, there were already tons of people there.  We would have been up earlier, but it was really cold (in the 20s) overnight and when we got up, so we huddled around a fire for a bit.  Have I explained 14ers before?  Basically it's one of Colorado's 58ish mountains over 14,000 ft tall-- Mt Bierstadt is 14,060 ft.

As a consequence, we were hiking straight into the sun on the way there.  And it was cold, so I was stupidly not drinking enough water.  So I got a bit dehydrated and tired on the way up.  The guidebook said the trail was supposed to be six miles round trip, but I think it was actually more like 8 or 9.  I think the trail shifts quite a bit every year.

But it was awesome nonetheless.  And the views were amazing.  Unlike our last 14er hike, we could see the trailhead and the car the whole way up, which was cool but overwhelming.

Here's a view from the top of Bierstadt of Mount Evans.  Mount Evans has a paved road all the way to the top-- the highest paved road in North America (we took my parents up there when they visited, so they could "climb" a 14er too).

And here's the view in the other direction.  The two main peaks are Grey's and Torrey's, also 14ers, which we climbed earlier this summer.

Like I said, it was a good hike, and after we got down, we had hot dogs and s'mores back at the campsite.  And then tried to stay up late, but we were so tired...

Next day, we basically got up and drove home.  But I got to snap a photo of my favorite road sign ever:

Yep, that's a warning sign for big-horn sheep.  Sorry the photo's not a great one...  My camera doesn't take great pictures from the car.

EDIT: I forgot to explain about the map below... My phone battery decided to die part of the way up the mountain, so I didn't get the whole hike captured.  Really need to get a real GPS unit for tracking hikes.

View Camping and Mt Bierstadt in a larger map