Climbing Huron Peak

Shannon and I wanted to climb one more 14er before the season ended. It's been gorgeous here the past week, so we took advantage of the great weather and planned our hike for last Thursday (my day off). After I got home from work Wednesday, I packed and we set off for Huron around 8 pm. We had a two-and-a-half hour drive to the trailhead, including a bit of 4-wheeling. We drove through intermittent rain, snow, and freezing rain, which concerned us a little, though I knew the forecast for the morning was for clear skies.

We stopped at a campsite along the 4-wheel drive road about a mile from the trailhead. Shannon set up the tent and our sleeping bags while I started the fire (we hadn't eaten dinner, yet). Starting the fire was a challenge because of all the precipitation we'd gotten. I had to break dead branches off of the lower parts of pine trees to get dry wood. It was also drizzling while I was working, making keeping the fire going even more challenging. I had planned on grilling burgers and baking potatoes. I knew the potatoes would take a while, so I placed them (in aluminum foil) on some flat rocks inside the fire ring as soon as I started the fire. Eventually, I moved them onto the coals to cook them faster. We were starving, so as soon as the burgers were finished, we pulled out the potatoes. We didn't have silverware, so we ate them like apples. Even though they hadn't quite cooked all the way through, they were delicious.

We woke up at 5 am the next morning to break camp and drive the last mile to the trailhead. When I got out of the tent, there was ice on the rain fly. There was also ice on my Jeep. The thermometer on my watch read 32° inside the tent. It was still dark as we drove to the trailhead, though by the time we got to it a little before 6.30 am, we didn't need headlamps to hike with. A little after 6.30, we were on our way up the mountain.

We'd chosen Huron partially because we'd read reviews of the climb that said it was a beautiful hike. And it lived up to our expectations. The trail was well built and not too difficult, and the views were amazing. Here's one of our first good views of the valley taken from near tree line.


You can see the Aspen were already pretty yellow. Most of them are yellow now and some have already lost all their leaves. Fall is pretty short at this elevation.

We also saw lots of wildlife on this hike. We saw a mule deer buck, but it was too far away for me to get good pictures of. We also saw three mule deer yearlings together. You can only see one in this picture. The other two blend in to the background pretty well (they're above the small bush in the center of the picture.


Above tree line, it became apparent that all the frost we thought we'd seen was more likely snow from the night before.


This small pond had a thin layer of ice on it from over night.

Most of the hike was pretty straight forward, until we got to were there was still packed snow on the trail. Apparently the upper portion of this trail keeps snow year round. We'd read trip reports were people mentioned wearing microspikes, but I didn't imagine there would be this much snow on the trail.


The last couple hundred vertical feet of the trail went through a rock/boulder field and required some very careful scrambling to navigate with the permanent snow on it. The fresh snow over night made the climb even more challenging and several icy spots required all four appendages to maneuver past.

After some careful climbing, we summited around 10 am. The weather on the summit was perfect. There was almost no wind and hardly a cloud in the sky. And though the temperature was close to freezing, the sun made it feel like it was 60 degrees.

We enjoyed the summit for over a half hour by ourselves (something rare on top of a 14er) before heading back down. We knew the climb down from the top would be even more challenging than the climb up, because the sun had softened the snow and ice. Despite the challenge, we made it through the rocky section and were able to enjoy the gorgeous views of the sunlit valley.

Here's a panorama I made from the summit. There are several more good ones on flickr.


After nearly 7 miles and 7 hours of hiking, we made it back to the Jeep and began the return trip to Silver Plume. We got our first good views of the valley on our drive back, since it had been dark when we arrived the night before.


There were several old mining camps in the valley, and two ghost towns with restored buildings.


We had originally planned on stopping at the ghost towns to look around, but most of the building are privately owned, and thus locked up tight with little more to explore than you could see from your car. That was a little disappointing.


We had seen evidence of beavers in the valley, and sure enough when we stopped to take pictures of a large beaver hutch, we saw three beavers swimming around! Unfortunately, you can't see the beavers well in any of our pictures.


We had a great time on our short trip and are planning on doing a fall colors trip soon. The rest of the pictures from this trip are on flickr.

Loveland Bench

My solution for the ugly top sheet on the snowboard I used to make the bench? Cover it with the dozens of Loveland stickers I had laying around (they have great coupons on the back). I had just enough stickers to do the whole snowboard. I liked the center graphic on the snowboard, so I worked around it. I think it turned out pretty cool. I need to find something to cover it with so that the stickers don't get peeled off when people sit on it. I'm open to suggestions.



Check out the larger version of the picture on flickr to see it better.

Placing the stickers accurately was a challenge. They are all lined up edge to edge. In order to get them all placed perfectly, I sprayed window cleaner on the board before putting each sticker down. That allowed me to slide the sticker around. After I got the sticker placed where I wanted it, I used a rubber squeegee to force out most of the liquid. The edges of some of the stickers didn't stick very well, but after the glass cleaner dried over night, all the stickers adhered pretty well.

Productive Day

I had a productive day today. I mowed the lawn for the second (and probably last) time this summer (grass grows slow up here). I also started putting up the Christmas lights. Since I never took them off the trees from last year, all I did was move the lights from the trees to the roof, which is where I had originally intended on putting them. Before you question why I am doing the Christmas lights in September, know that last year I put them up after Thanksgiving and had to do it in two feet of snow in the freezing cold. The weather is pretty good here right now, so I'm taking advantage of it.

I also built a bench out of an old snowboard today. I used some scrap 2x4s I had laying around and I think it turned out pretty well.


I made the bench to put under the kitchen table. We normally have the table pushed against a wall. When we have more than three people eat, though, we have to pull the table out and put folding chairs behind it. Now, we have a bench ready to go when we pull the table out. The top of the board is pretty ugly, but I plan on doing something to make it look better.

I also built a display case for the 20 year old food I found when I cleaned out the cabinets last spring. I used some more scrap would I had laying around and plexiglass leftover from when I replaced the plexiglass in the storm door last summer. You can't really see it in the picture, but there is a piece of plexiglass closing the front of the case. I used the table saw to cut grooves in the wood to hold the plexiglass.


The rice in the bottom right was the official sponsor of the 1992 Olympics. The baby food in the upper left expired in 1987, so it was probably mine. The Mac & Cheese doesn't have any dates on it, but the price tag says "4 for 88¢". It must be old! I'm going to get a bracket so I can hang this gem on the wall.

Shed Update

I finished painting the green on the shed. Just have the trim left and it's finished.


I had some company while I was painting Monday evening, a couple of mule deer hanging out on the other side of the street, just 15 yards from where I was. They stayed for a while, until Piglet came and chased them off.

Climbing Mt. Massive

Labor day weekend was pretty crazy for me. I worked at a ski show for Loveland selling 4-Paks and season passes down in Denver on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday afternoons. Friday evening, after I got home around ten, I packed my bags and set off to climb Mt. Massive, a 14er, with some friends.

I made it to the spot where my friends had already set up camp around 11.45 pm after about a two hour drive. I rolled out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag in the back of my Jeep and slept until my alarm went off at 3 am. We had originally wanted to reach the summit at sunrise so we could watch it from 14,421 feet. We didn't leave quite early enough for that, but we were at the trailhead by 4.30 am (I had a slow crew to break camp with).

It was pretty close to a new moon, so it was very dark and the first two hours of our hike were in the pitch black, hiking through the woods with headlamps. Without the moon, though, the stars were incredible. We stopped several times and turned our headlamps off just to admire them. About the same time we made it to the tree level (a little over 11,000 feet), the sky had become just light enough that we could hike without our headlamps. Here's the sun just starting to glow in the valley 1,000 feet below.

From there, we had another 2.5 miles to hike and nearly 3,500 vertical feet to gain. That is a very steep assent. The hike was similar to climbing thousands of loose, rocky, steep stairs for three hours. By 8.30 am, after around 4 hours of hiking, we'd reached the summit. I was in a bit of a hurry to get back down because I had to be back in Denver to work at the ski show by 3 pm. I spent about a half hour on the summit basking in the sun, eating, and relaxing before the hike down.

I left my group at the summit around 9 am, hoping to make it back to my Jeep by 11. After I'd gotten only a couple hundred yards from the summit, I saw a family of mountain goats. I think they were as interested in us as we were in them.

The hike down was as challenging as the trek to the top. I maintained a pretty quick pace on the way down, nearly jogging at times. The hike up and the brutally steep decent had my quads shaking with each step down. I had to stop several times and sit down to rest my legs. I didn't have time to waste, though, and forced myself to keep moving. In spite of my breaks, I made it back to my Jeep before 11 am, less than two hours after leaving the summit and less than half the time it had taken to reach it.

It took every bit of the four hours I had left to drive back to the cabin, shower, and drive to Denver in time for work at the ski show. I was physically exhausted, but made it through the show and the drive back home before collapsing in bed. My legs were incredibly sore the next two-and-a-half days, but climbing Mt. Massive has been one of the highlights of my summer.

The rest of the pictures are on flickr.

Primed Shed

I got the shed primed and ready for paint at the end of last week. It already looks significantly better. Can't wait to put the bright green paint on it and have it match the cabin!

Job Update

I've been applying for engineering jobs in Colorado like crazy. Almost every day, I apply for new positions that have been posted. I have also made some connections in engineering companies that I'm trying to leverage for a job opportunity. In the meantime, I've been working at the local tourist railroad, The Georgetown Loop. I'm a platform attendant there, which means I take peoples' tickets and help them board and unload the train safely. I also have to clean the bathrooms. It pays the bills, though, and will hopefully only be temporary, until I get an engineering job.