Colorado, July 2014

Head for Home

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Our trip to Colorado was like winning a big jackpot in the state lottery. The weather supposed to be sunny with occasional afternoon thunderstorms -- this is what the oldest Coloradans would tell you. Instead, it was cloudy 90% of the time and rainy 70% of the time, with occasional clearing of the sky so we could see for 20min or so that we were in fact in the middle of mountains. (In other words this is a collection entiteld "Gory w Chmurach i Chmury w Gorach".) Thanks to rain, the greenery was truly GREEN and the meadows were spectacular.

Despite non-collaborating weather, we almost accomplished all our plans:

Day 1. Hike from Yeoman Park to Polar Star Inn. (We followed the blues blazes of a ski trail which was mostly a well marked clear path.)

Day 2. Hike to New York Mountain and New York Lake. (This hike turned out to be very memorable, as bushwacking in the rain filled our boots with volumes of water and scaling steep slopes was like making 1000 squats.)

Day 3. Hike from Polar Star Inn to Peter Estin Hut. (The path passes by the car park; about 1/2 mile from where the car was parked, a downpour began and then turned into steady rain, so we drove from Yeoman Park to Peter Estin Hut where we dried by a fire.)

Day 4. Hike to Fools Peak. (We missed scaling Fools Peak as darkly ominous clouds covered it exactly when we were at the starting point of the last ascent; the clouds stayed there for a good two hours. Charles Peak ridge is beautiful and the occasional glimpses of the surrounding mountains were impressive.)

Day 5. Hike to Negro Basin. (We almost made the hike as planned; though, it always rains when we're by Charles Lake; however, the thickness of fog and the rain intensity varied. It cleared for 1/2 hr when we were setting cairns up to Negro Basin, only to be chased down to the lake by thunder.)

Day 6. Get down to Eagle and drive closer to Denver. (The original plan was, of course, to hike down, but as the weather-related events of Day 3 evolved, the car was near the hut so we HAD to drive on this first nice clear day of the week. In the afternoon we got to Idaho Springs where we took a therapeutic bath at the hot springs.)

Pics here document the trek .