Colorado – BOOTS on the TRAIL

Longs Peak / Kiener’s Route (June 1991)

2019-02-022022-01-31Posted in Colorado, Other Stuff, U.S. National Parks & MonumentsTagged Colorado, Kiener's Route, Longs Peak Colorado, Mountaineering, Rocky Mountain National Park7 Comments

Up until 2008, our adventures were retained only as memories and on 35mm slides. While our memories may have faded (just a bit), the slides haven’t – and we have a lot of them. So we’re digitizing a select few to bring some of our past adventures into the 21^st Century. The photos below are some of those old slides.

Long’s Peak (14,259 ft / 4,346 m) is Colorado’s 15^th highest peak, its northernmost fourteener, and the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. It has become the most popular climbing mountain in the state, with as many as 100 or more people on its summit on a busy summer weekend! Such was not the case, however, back in the early summer of 1991 when I coaxed Alan, my old climbing partner, out West from Vermont for a few days of nostalgia climbing in Colorado (where The LovedOne and I lived at the time). Sort of a last hurrah. He and I did a few fun warm-up climbs and then capped-off his visit with a climb of Kiener’s Route (YDS II, 5.4) on Longs. Also known as the Mountaineer’s Route, Kiener’s is on the East Face of Long’s.

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Canoeing on the Yampa River (June 1992)

2018-12-172022-01-30Posted in Colorado, RaftingTagged Canoeing, Colorado, Rafting, Yampa River2 Comments

Before we succumbed to rafting, we gave canoeing a try on the Yampa River in Colorado. The Yampa is the only unregulated and naturally flowing major tributary remaining in the Colorado River system. This was a 4-day trip sponsored by the Colorado Mountain Club, who supplied all the canoeing gear. It was not, however, along the very scenic portion of the river within Dinosaur National Monument. Our trip was a ways upstream, in flat, open country populated mostly by cows. Still, it was a non-threatening way to test our canoe enthusiasm. We enjoyed the river but found that a canoe cannot have two captains if you want it to actually follow the river. Plus you have to paddle. Years – and a Folbot trip – would go by before we embraced rafting, where someone else (the guide) is the captain and paddling is minimal.

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Mosca Pass Trail (Great Sand Dunes NP) 19-May-2017

2017-05-192022-01-30Posted in Colorado, Hiking, U.S. National Parks & MonumentsTagged Alamosa Colorado, Colorado, Day Hiking, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Hiking, Mosca Pass Trail Colorado, Sangre de Cristo Mountains Colorado

After our hikes at Palo Duro Canyon in West Texas, we roadtripped north to Alamosa, Colorado, gateway to Great Sand Dunes National Park. When we’d lived in Colorado years ago, we’d driven by this park several times enroute to climbs of nearby 14teeners, but never actually stoped for a visit. We were going to rectify that omission on this trip. You can hike on the dunes themselves – a la Beau Geste – but there are other hiking trails in the park. The most accessible of these – it starts almost at the visitor center – is the Mosca Pass Trail and that was the one we chose. It also tops out at around 9,800 feet and would thus be snow-free by now (unlike some of the surrounding peaks).

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