The FIRST SNOW of the season! We were very excited! This is our Burley trailer or in Toby's world, his chariot, but we also use it for groceries, recycling when we're feeling motivated, and whatever else we need it for. A great investment!
Everyone has been wondering how Brian can take Chemistry online. Well, this is how... Chem lab on the kitchen table. Safety first, got to protect those big beautiful brown eyes!
Lab #1, Observing the reaction of chemicals, yes I get to participate as well! Although, I don't have cool glasses like Brian does.
One of the many sunrises I get to see when I get up to do my morning Pilates or various workout tapes. This view is from our backdoor with the sunrise highlighting the mountain known as "Sleeping Indian".
Another beautiful sunrise.
Sunset with Birthday peak way far in the background to the right of the tree, looks like a perfect triangular peak.
Mt. Princeton with some fresh late Fall snow. The sun was setting and there was some rich reds & pinks glistening on the ridges, challenging to capture though.
Another pretty sunset over Mt. Princeton. Not bad views from one's front door! We're not complaining ;)
LOTS of SNOW YIPEE!! We can't wait for winter, we're ready for some skiing!
We didn't get out much to take photos of the golden aspens, so we figured the aspen trees in our front yard would have to do. The leaves didn't last very long, as you can see it storming toward Columbia & Harvard in the background.
This shot is taken from around 11,550 feet in the northwest facing basin of Handies Peak, called the American Basin. It was raining when we drove up here from Redcloud & Sunshine Peaks. It's always fun setting up a tent in the rain :(
Toby was so exhausted he didn't seem to mind the bumpy 4WD road up to our campsite. We practically had to carry him over to the tent. 
The wildflowers were absolutely amazing! I think we chose one of the best weekends to be hiking during the crest of the wildflowers. This is shot from our tent since we pretty much relaxed/slept until early morning.
O.K. since it's been awhile since I've blogged, I again got these out of order. With that said, here we are on the summit of Handies Peak about 2 hours after we left the trailhead. The views from Handies were incredible, mountain peaks stretched along the horizon in every direction. We took a 365 degree picture shot, we'll see if we can actually get it to turn out.
Here we are on day 3 of our EPIC weekend and Toby and I are pushing up to the saddle where we'll turn north (left) and head up to the summit. The trail was obviously very well travelled and maintained we almost could have worn flip flops (except it was a little chilly for that)
Looking down from the saddle toward the west, where we had come up, we get a great view of the small mountain lake we passed earlier. This will be definite stop for Toby dog on the way down. He's earned a frolick in the lake.
Brian went for an evening walk, so I was testing my camera skills and captured what I call a watercolor shot of Brian amongst the wildflowers. Pretty cool I think.
Brian was capturing the 365 degree views so I was trying to duck out of the way, but it apparently didn't work very well. It just looks like I'm "watering the rocks".
Here's our individual poses on top. We acted quickly because as you can see behind Brian a storm was rolling in very quickly.
Handies Peak sits at 14,048 feet. It is the 40th highest peak out of the 54 or 55 fourteeners, depending on who's counting. It is also located in the San Juan Range, 15 miles southwest of Lake City, and other nearby towns are Silverton, Telluride, and Ouray. The route from the American Basin Trailhead is 6 miles long, gaining around 2,500 feet of elevation. Surprisingly we scampered up the peak with no trouble, although we were motivated in trying to peak before the storm crept up. Definitely something to be cautious of, but we could tell we had plenty of time. And, actually the storm dissipated upon our descent.
Toby is an awesome hiking partner. He mostly stays on the trail and is in amazing shape. We're so grateful he's been apart of our life for the last almost 8 years! He's very photogenic too!
Day 2 of our EPIC "4 fourteener's in 3 days weekend". This is our first snow crossing on our way up to Redcloud Peak from the Silver Creek Trailhead where we camped. We woke up at 4:15am chowed down our bagels with cream cheese and reached the National Forest register around 5:00am. It was still very dark at this time so headlamps were essential. Being a little freaked out about bears, I made sure Toby had on his bell! 
The sun was just starting to hit the peaks opposite the drainage we were hiking up. It was a beautiful sunrise!
Yes, I am a big dork.
The last ascent up to Redcloud Peak. Not too bad, although it looks more like ski turns!
Brian sitting at 14,034 feet signing us into the registry of Redcloud Peak! After signing our names he checked out the names of the folks that had peaked the day ahead of us. He discovered one of our friends from Gunnison, Mr. Evan Strauss and girlfriend had just hiked these two mountains 1 day ahead of us. CRAZY! we've never seen the names of anyone we knew on a registry before so that was really cool!
We had gained 3,700 feet of elevation gain over a period of 4.5 miles. This is not where we stopped however, we were in for "bagging" as they say two fourteeners today! Toby, below, is looking over toward Sunshine Peak which is 1.5 miles South of us.
Knowing we would be exposed above treeline for several hours we didn't stop for many pictures on the way over to Sunshine Peak. Redcloud is behind me to the right. We ate lunch on Sunshine at oh, 14,001 feet! Hmmm...Peanut butter and honey pitas!
Marmots and Pikas and wildflowers oh my!
On our way down, almost to treeline, nearing the end of our 12 mile hike. We made it back to our toasty tent early afternoon and took a nice long nap before we packed up and headed over to Handies Peak which was the next day's adventure.
This was something we had to be careful of when crossing those snow fields. Some other Gunnison friends of ours were checking out an area like this above Gothic and the cave collapsed on one of the guys. His friends were able to rescue him but had to call reinforcements to winch him up hill in a litter, because he had some critical injuries. SO, be very very careful around these beautiful snow caves!
Typically we work four ten hour days and have three day weekends to play, clean house, do homework, search for lost people, etc. The weekend of August 23rd we requested another day so that we could do something fun (out of town) before Brian started classes again. Therefore we decided to climb four fourteeners in the San Juan Range: Uncompahgre Peak, Redcloud Peak, Sunshine Peak, and Handies Peak. Here we start off with Uncompahgre Peak early morning as we broke away from treeline.
Here's our goal, it was kind of a cylindrical shaped mountain, very different than those in the Sawatch Range. Uncompahgre is the sixth highest and stands at 14,309 feet. Uncompahgre means "hot water spring" and is named after a river.
When we looked West toward Wetterhorn Peak (a fourteener)& Matterhorn Peak in the distance pictured two above. We heard what we thought might be ATVs buzzing around the Alpine Loop 4WD road. To our suprise we realized it was a huge flock of sheep! They were just munching away to their hearts content and "baaing" like crazy.
This is Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak in the distance as seen from the top of Uncompahgre. Redcloud is on the left and Sunshine to it's right. Our next day's adventure!
Looking back down the drainage we hiked up. This area just south of Lake City is very colorful lots of old mining.
Brian and Toby taking in some incredible views from a sketchy lookout point. Although he grew up playing around the Mississippi River bluffs it's still a very very long way down.
This is on the way down we just passed a preserved area to my left. We were thinking it was for a butterfly study maybe? We saw so many in the area, but it's something we need to research. Back to the ole' Land Cruiser to take us to our next campsite at the Redcloud/Sunshine Trailhead!
These pictures are all out of order, but OH well! This is our summit picture. We were sad to find that someone had stolen both the registry and the survey mark. So, it was just a stick in a pile of rocks. However, the views were amazing as always! Mt. Massive is 14,421 feet tall. The second highest peak in Colorado. The first ascent recorded (they had a registry) was in 1863 by Henry Gannett. There are actually several fourteen thousand something foot peaks connected to Mt. Massive. They are not considered a separate fourteener because they are less than the required distance from Mt. Massive. The hike is 13.75 miles round trip and has an elevation gain of 4,500 feet.
These are the North Half Moon Lakes. There is another trailhead for Mt. Massive that comes up from the Southwest side called the N. Halfmoon Creek Trailhead, but it's super steep. 
Here's the "overcast" weather picture looking west toward the Elk Range, toward Crested Butte area. Needless to say, we did not stay on top for very long. It never did rain or lightning, thank goodness, but we headed back to camp to break down our tent and head over to Mt. Elbert.
Saturday after work we drove up to the Mt. Massive Trailhead and hiked in for about 30 minutes where we found a semi-level spot to pitch our tent. It's always fun selecting a tent site at night.
Sunday morning, I guess we could have stayed home and gone to church, but this is just as spiritually lifting! This is looking east toward Leadville.
The day started off beautifully only a few puffy white clouds. We started late, around 6:50am. By the time we reached the saddle the clouds joined and the sky was mostly overcast. Hmmm....the big question to proceed or not?
The FIRST SNOW of the season! We were very excited! This is our Burley trailer or in Toby's world, his chariot, but we also use it for groceries, recycling when we're feeling motivated, and whatever else we need it for. A great investment!
Everyone has been wondering how Brian can take Chemistry online. Well, this is how... Chem lab on the kitchen table. Safety first, got to protect those big beautiful brown eyes!
Lab #1, Observing the reaction of chemicals, yes I get to participate as well! Although, I don't have cool glasses like Brian does.
One of the many sunrises I get to see when I get up to do my morning Pilates or various workout tapes. This view is from our backdoor with the sunrise highlighting the mountain known as "Sleeping Indian".
Another beautiful sunrise.
Sunset with Birthday peak way far in the background to the right of the tree, looks like a perfect triangular peak.
Mt. Princeton with some fresh late Fall snow. The sun was setting and there was some rich reds & pinks glistening on the ridges, challenging to capture though.
Another pretty sunset over Mt. Princeton. Not bad views from one's front door! We're not complaining ;)
LOTS of SNOW YIPEE!! We can't wait for winter, we're ready for some skiing!
We didn't get out much to take photos of the golden aspens, so we figured the aspen trees in our front yard would have to do. The leaves didn't last very long, as you can see it storming toward Columbia & Harvard in the background.
