last of the aspen in summit county, 2009

This was on the way up Humbug Hill, back in French Gulch near Breckenridge.

A four-wheel drive road, but very steep.

tiger road - georgia pass - colorado trail

A nice coating of snow dusted the peaks overnight.

Looking south towards our destination, just left of the peak, Mt. Guyot.

After about an hour of climbing, the road gets steeper and is hike-a-bike.
Drew eyes up what ended up being the last push to the summit.

Almost there...

Georgia Pass, 11,585 feet. Continential Divide

Drew tells these dirt bikers they're a bunch of gas-guzzling motorheads. Just kiddin. To each his own, but me and my friends are usually of the non-motorized human propulsion adventurer type.

Mt. Guyot

Looking towards south park and pike's peak wwaaaaay in the distance.

Drew looking for his bottle of oxygen, while Porter eyes up the closing thunderheads saying "let's roll Dad!"

You can double click on the pics to make them bigger, but you can see the single track on the left side. Riding at treeline, with snowy peaks in the background. Totally worth the uphill grunt.

I take a rare break of holding the camera, showing my new bike this summer, my first full-suspension bike. I barely got a shock a few years ago. No clipless pedals yet though.

Drew and Porter, excellent mountain-exploring partners

UNBELIEVABLE red grass making a rare mountain shot

creek crossing

The ride down was awesome singletrack, full of roots and rocks and not very good for taking pics. I finally stopped when we started passing through these nice big meadows.

Finish line!

baker's tank wildflower hike, breckenridge, colorado

delphinium

I rode up Boreas Pass road and explored some mystery trails that ended up petering out. I did climb above the Baker's Tank for a little while before a very unridable steep appeared next to this field of wildflowers. I decided to skip the climb and take pics instead.

You could almost see the summit of Mt. Baldy...

I drove the girls here a few days later and hiked them to it. It was about a 15 min. walk. Just exploring different singletracks I found this field of flowers I had never seen before in breck. It's fun to just keep exploring the local trails to find something new everytime.

mt. helen, 13,164

Kevin eyeing up the intro to the climb on loose, small rocks that was like ball bearings on an already steep angle.

Mt. Helen is just south of Breckenridge, between Mohawk and Crystal lakes. About 1/3 of a mile onto the wheeler trail you go hard left into the trees and find your way to a gulley that is the main way up and down.
[ mt. helen ]

Class four scrambling on this section. But, we really didn't see anything too much flatter anywhere near where we were, so up we went.

The gulley we were looking for is just up and to the left. We were worried we were getting pulled too far right. On either side of Mt. Helen are steep drop offs, so we were trying not to find any cliffs to climb up. Instead we found thousands, if not millions of flowers the whole hike up.

The ball bearings were gone, but we had a ways to go.

Kevin showing me how big his last fish was. Yeah right Kev.

Summit Views... ahhh... Looking down on Crystal Lake. You can see the road just below it.

The ridge to Father Dyer Peak. For another day...

14er Mt. Quandary was to our south. The ridge in front of it goes to Pacific Peak.

Kevin reaching the rock shelter / wind break on the top of Mt. Helen!

These flowers were blooming at 13,164 feet. Amazing.

The camera leaves the photographers hands for this shot...

This succulent was growing just below the summit.

upper mohawk lake from mt. helen

We decided to go with gravity after fighting it on the way up and jogged down in spots.

hoosier ridge traverse

14265 foot Mt. Quandary as seen from hoosier ridge.


















The section House, on top of Boreas Pass, the start of the hike. 11300 ft. 13000 ft. Mt. Baldy in the background.


















Boreas pass itself is an old steam train route from Denver to Breckenridge.
























Kevin chargin' it. We still have to drop down this valley and then climb back up the other side.



















This drop was steeper than I thought. I only had running shoes on. Ankle support would have been nice.

















Starting the longest climb of the hike.
















Looking back at the hill we just came down.



















A short ski on one of the last patches of snow left. Kevin is hiking around.
















Mt. Baldy in the background.

























The highest point of the hike. The hike was 8 miles long and we hiked from 1000 am 'til 6 pm.


















Hiking down to Hoosier Pass. The end is in sight! But it still a good 45 from here, and we lost the trail in the willow brush. Our instincts led us right to the correct spot. One of the best days of summer!!