Adventure Travel Photography Blog
For the first time since Memorial Day, I finally got to reconnect with Jim, Diana, and Danelle to hike Kettle Ponds. My fellow hiking buddies, along with Zoe the dog, were staying up in Breckenridge Saturday night. Annie and I arose early Sunday morning to meet them in Silverthorne, CO at the trailhead.
HAPPY HIKING!
Pennsylvania Mountain is a 13,000 foot mountain located near Fairplay, Colorado. Access to the trail head is via a well graded dirt road. When I arrived early on a Saturday morning, I was the first car in the cul-de-sac parking area.
HAPPY HIKING!
Shrine Ridge Trail is located off Shrine Pass Road in the White River National Forest near Vail, Colorado. Though dirt, Shrine Pass Road from I-70 is easily navigable to the dirt parking lot complete with pit toilets. Tanya and I arrived just before 8am on a Thursday and there were only a few other cars.
HAPPY HIKING!
I have been wanting to hike to Lake Isabelle for a long time. For some reason, however, I only think about it in the winter time when the gate is closed which requires many extra miles along the road. Finally, I timed my hike to coincide with opening day at Brainard Lake Recreation Area.
HAPPY HIKING!
Thunderhead Trail is the most popular hiking route on Mount Werner, the ski mountain in Steamboat Springs. The point to point trail travels 3.3 miles from the base of the mountain to the summit.
GO HIKING!
I changed up my hiking scenery this past week. Instead of heading toward the Rocky Mountain foothills near Bailey, I ventured toward the foothills near Loveland, Colorado. Here, I hiked the trail to Stone Mountain.
GO HIKING!
I just recently posted about South Park Trail and the hike I completed the following day, Bruno Gulch, intersects this trail at a location farther south. That tidbit of information isn’t terribly important if you are only looking for a short and easy hike, but if you are looking for more distance, these two trails may be hiked together as a point-to-point.
GO HIKING!
Another month at home in Colorado during COVID equals another weekend at Estabrook, our family ranch near Bailey, Colorado. This time, a friend of mine, Tina, came up from New Mexico. She is a nuclear scientist, and I really enjoy our intellectually stimulating conversations. Such chats have sometimes been lacking during my retirement years.
Anyway, she is also a hard core hiker and definitely ran me through the ringer during the early hiking season in Colorado. While she is already in better shape than me, she had additional advantages. She lives at a higher altitude in Albuquerque, and has already been enjoying hiking weather.
Aside from the usual hike we do on our property, we set out on two more hikes for the weekend. The first was Shelf Lake and the second was Rolling Creek.
HIKE AWAY!
So the COVID crisis has kept me state side since the end of March. That is a long time for me, especially while remaining in the same state the whole time. Fortunately, I live in the beautiful state of ColoRADo, and there are lots of outdoor activities to keep residents busy. Unfortunately, April and May tend to be “mud season” in the mountains, so the trails aren’t always inviting.
GO HIKING!
After four weeks of island hopping, I joined my friends in the Solomons after an unusual connecting flight through Fiji. The gentleman in my row asked me to carry his alcohol through immigration. I’m sure it was just due to a limit, but entering a foreign country, I politely replied, “No, thank you.” Upon a second attempt, to which I said no again, he told me I wasn’t being very nice!
A few folks behind us overheard, and at the end of the flight, they wanted to know more. In the end, I learned, one lady sails her boat around the world. Envious, I said, I wish I met you while in Vanuatu, I always find myself wanting to be on islands that are only accessible to boats. She told me for the future, I could just go to a website call Crew Seekers. Hello! That’s how I’ll be doing some of my future trips.
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