Thought I would post some updates for those that dont follow my attention whore posts on FB:
Wife and I tacked Quandary Peak over the weekend...
Its called a "14'er" Mountain over 14,000 feet in elevation....
We originally chose this one cause its listed in the "easier" group and we had planned to stay in Breckenridge Saturday night, but that changed due to my kids coming back earlier than planned on Sunday.
We probably should have chose a less rocky 14'er (as you will see in the pictures)
The guide book says the elevation gain from the trailhead to the peak is 3500 and 6.5 miles round trip. That works good if you spend the night at the parking lot, but apparantly this is a popular activity. we got there at 6:30 AM and hard to park an extra mile+ away and even sadder, around 500 feet below in elevation that the trailhead due to all the cars..
This is taken around 13,000 feet (guess) looking back down the mountain, this section is the only flat section of the hike, where I took the picture I am on the "trail" so you can see all the F'n rocks
ALso if you see the "S" curve in the road down to the right, thats about where our car was...
We did see some Billy Goats / Mountain Goats / etc
This is at the summitt as we walked down... you can see why our dog had on them booties..
This is at the other end of the simmitt. you can see its fairly crowded...
This is just below the summit but at 14,001 feet. The woman with the american flag, you can see to the left she has two Id say 1st grade age kids who made it to 14,000 feet (whats your excuse?) We almost quit when we were here we were so F'n tired, then we saw these little guys and said F it lets go..
Again this is at around 12,000 feet or so (where the flat part ends looking up) You can see how crowded it is, this stretch there really only one way up, lots of rocks for 2000 feet... we took lots of breaks....
& I have been meaning to do more of this and ask you guys / gals to do the same on your outdoor outings.. take a little VTE with you...