We finally got to Denver for GABF! But before heading to town we did a morning hike in the Flatirons of Boulder. We figured it would be good to get in some exercise before the days of indulgence at GABF. As much fun as this festival is, I’m glad it’s only once a year!
Morning hike with coffee to the first Flatiron:
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The reason for our road trip to Colorado is the Great American Beer Festival, so once we reached Fort Collins beer took a priority on our itinerary. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t also have some outdoors fun!
We set our alarms early (we’re not THAT dedicated beer drinkers…there is far too much to do in the morning!) and headed out to Horsetooth Reservoir for some bouldering among the rocks that helped kick start the sport years ago.
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We left West Yellowstone Monday morning at sunrise, heading south to Jackson. It was a beautiful sunrise, but it was so cold outside!
We took the short scenic drive to Mesa Falls and found the place deserted. The 28 degrees and misting fall water kept us from enjoying the place too long. Brr!
Upper Mesa Falls:
We woke up on Sunday morning and did a double check: nope, not dreaming, parks still closed, Congress still run by selfish asses. Grr. So instead, we decided to head out on a recommended wildlife-spotting loop for spring when the snow has not yet melted, followed by a visit to Big Sky. We drove around Hebgen Lake and did not see any wildlife, but we did see the fascinating remnants of an earthquake that decimated a local recreation area and essentially created a new lake. It was windy and 25 degrees, though, so we didn’t linger.
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What a trip! Over 3700 miles driven, 8 states crossed, 5 National Parks visited, 325 beers tasted at GABF, 7 straight days with no shower, 3000 pictures taken, and one very muddy truck, we managed to have a great time despite the (government imposed) hiccups along the way.
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Last weekend we did a quick trip to the Eastern Sierra to do some leaf peeping. Reports were coming in that the colors were peaking early, so we thought we’d check it out.
What we found was a weird year for fall colors. It seems that everything is either still bright green or already browning, without much in between. We found scattered groves of bright colors and got some nice photos, but then the storm came in.
The forecast on Saturday morning was a 20% chance of precip with snow at higher elevations, but not enough to stick. By the time we were on the east side the chance had upped to 85% and snow was falling. The forecast for Bishop was dry, however, so we planned on camping around there. Unfortunately that 0% didn’t hold and we were rained on pretty good for a few hours on Saturday night. Meanwhile, snow was falling at higher elevations.
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For the final part of this trip report, I’m mostly revisiting terrain we crossed our first and second days. But the views are so great that it’s totally worth it! Unfortunately, our idea to climb Mt Williamson didn’t work out as planned. Feeling a bit spooked about the route after chatting with some other climbers and learning that just getting to the base of the peak was 9 hours round trip, we started considering other options.
The next morning, the intended day of our climb, we woke to gusting winds that nearly blew me off my feet, and waiting it out wasn’t working. The wind was picking up and we were well past the window of time where we should have left for Williamson.
So instead we decided to pack up and make it a long day on the trail, working our way back towards Forester Pass and hopefully making it to Kearsarge Lakes for the night. We estimated it to be about an 18 mile day with about 4000 ft of gain, including a 1500 ft climb to cap thins off right at the end. It wasn’t going to be an easy day. Considering we were already getting a late start due to our attempts to wait out the wind, I wasn’t completely confident we’d make it to Kearsarge Lakes that night. But we hoped to in order to meet up with some friends we thought might be staying there that night.
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On the morning of Day 5 we got up early and packed up, saying goodbye to Pavla since she was heading in a different direction than us. Her plan was to meet up with some other friends who were heading out via Mt Whitney. Meanwhile, David and I were heading over to Shepherd Pass to set up a base camp for the next couple of nights in order to climb Mt Tyndall and Mt Williamson.
We exited Wright Lakes basin via the simple cross-country Rockwell Pass, a shortcut that would quickly connect us to the trail heading towards Shepherd Pass from the JMT. Rockwell Pass is famous as the location of the highest observed tornado, but I was perfectly happy avoiding such excitement when we visited.
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We woke up the morning of Day 4 in Wright Lakes Basin, a lovely place that we seemingly had all to ourselves. This morning we weren’t packing up camp, rather we were off to climb Mt Barnard, the highest non-14er peak in the Sierra. And at 13,990 ft it’s close enough to 14k that maybe someday it will be measured as a 14er, so it’s nice to get it while it’s flying under the radar!
Although the summit of Barnard was less than 2 miles as the crow flies from camp, I had estimated our round trip route to be close to 10 miles of hiking. The southwest ridge of Barnard is an easy Class 1 slope but we still had some unknown terrain to navigate to even get to the ridge.
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