Abyss Trail to Helms Lake

For this weekend's hike we continued to stalk the Fall colors before it's too late. After some Googling, we decided on the Abyss Trail head. This trail head is located on the Guanella Pass, not too far past Georgetown. To get there we actually took the long way in and it was a very pretty drive through the pass. 

The trail itself was ~11.6 miles with a 2,241 ft. elevation gain. Even though it's a decent elevation gain, there are very few steep sections, so it's a moderate hike from that perspective.

The first 2 miles or so is dense pine trees. There isn't much to see for this part but it's still kind of cool to see all of the trees and feel like you're in a forest. After the 2 mile marker, you then cross a little river and open up into a very pretty meadow. There were still quite a few Aspen trees changing colors but we were a week behind for prime foliage.

As you go through the valley you cross the creek a few more times and have pretty views of the water, trees, and surrounding mountains. It was a very peaceful hike both from the view and gradual incline perspective.

As you reach the bottom of the mountains, it opens up a little more and you get a glimpse of Helms Lake. Below is a picture of that. It was pretty but nothing amazing compared to so many other mountain lakes.

On our way back down, we got lucky and saw ~20 mountain goats hopping around on the side of the mountain. This was only about 1 mile or so from Helms Lake. It was really fun watching them move around but unfortunately they blended in to the background too much for a good picture.

Since we started fairly early in the morning we were shaded for a lot of the hike and the pictures weren't as bright. Below are a few more pictures headed back to the trail head.

All-in-all, I would recommend this hike. It has a good variety of scenery and wasn't too intense where you could easily enjoy the hike. I doubt it would be as nice if the trees weren't turning. I would also highly recommend going early as it becomes a mad house later during the day. We got the trail around 7:30 and left at 12:30. There were a handful of cars when we got there but it was primarily overnight campers. When we got back, cars were lined up for over a mile on the road.

Gore Creek Trail to Buffalo Pass

It's finally starting to feel like Fall in the mountains here in CO, which also means the trees are starting to turn. For this week's hike, Ali and I headed to Gore Creek Trail which is a few minutes from East Vail.  According to AllTrails, it's around 12.8 miles with a 3,172 feet vertical. After doing a little more roaming around/taking the wrong path one time, we were right at 14 miles with a 3,294 vertical.

From the trail head, you start going uphill pretty fast. For the first 10 minutes or so you hear some interstate noise but that fades out quickly and you are encompassed by Aspen trees. Below are a few pictures after the initial climb with the sun rising.

From there, the trail has some ups and downs, but overall it's a fairly gradual climb for the most part with a few sections being more intense than others. It's a very pretty hike since you follow the Gore Creek the majority of the time and you get views water, forest, and mountain peeks in both directions.

The last .75 mile or so is pretty brutal after hiking 6 miles to get there. It's a steady climb of ~900 feet until you get to the top of Buffalo Pass. From the top of the pass you can see Silverthorne on the other side as well as the valley you just hiked through from East Vail. As you can see from the picture below, Ali was a tad tired.

Since the sun was in our eyes the majority of the hike there, I took a few more pictures coming back to show the creek and a view of East Vail.

Overall I would highly recommend this hike. It's definitely on the more on the strenuous side due to the elevation gain and length, but the variety of views that it provided was well worth it.

Herman Gulch Trail to Citadel Summit

For this weekend's adventure we stayed pretty close to Denver and hit up the Herman Gulch Trail. I'd done this trail once before but there was about a foot of snow o the ground so it was quite a bit different this time around.

The trail head is only about 55 minutes or so from Denver and it's right off I-70 which makes it a very easy trip. The parking lot is also pretty big so if you get there at a decent time, you shouldn't have an issue at all.

The first part of the trail is a steady uphill climb through Aspen trees and then you start to follow the river on your left. For about 15-20 minutes you still get quite a bit of I-70 noise which isn't ideal but that soon goes away once you get past that first incline.

After the incline, you are in more of a meadow-ish area with great views of mountains on all sides and the river on your left. We were there around 7:00 am and were the only people on the trail which was really nice as this trail gets very popular later. We probably passed at least 30 people on our way back around 2:00 pm.

About 1 hr. 37 min. into the hike we hit Herman Lake. It's a pretty nice lake but nothing special compared to so many others in the area.

Once you pass the lake, you continue to keep the river on your left and you get some great views of the valley you just came from and Citadel. We really like this part of the hike but the trail becomes slightly iffy and it's more of a "make your own path". We did a lot more walking that we should have the first time around. Overall, you keep the river on your left until you get close to the mountain. Then you need to be sure you go left as that's where the trail starts heading up to the summit.

The trail up to the summit is class 2 until you get about 200 feet away. It then turns into a class 3 scramble with a lot of loose rocks. I unfortunately followed another group and I thought they knew where they were going but apparently not and we did more of a class 4 climb up to the top instead of taking the actual trail. For anyone reading this, ignore the first 3 ravines going up to the peak and continue around the left side of them until you see the real trail.

The first picture below is where I ended up going up (wrong trail), and the second one is where I went down (correct trail).

The views at the top were great and after the last climb, which was a lot of fun, it made it worth it.

After our random walking around where we shouldn't of, the hike ended up being a little over 11 miles for us with a 3,642 elevation gain. I would highly recommend this trail to anyone as it gives you a mix of everything. You get your forest, meadows, and water at the bottom them scrambling/mountain views at the top.

Turquoise Lakes

These last few weekends Ali and I have been on a solid hiking schedule so we decided to keep it up. Due to some potential weather issues further north and south, we decided to drive to Beaver Creek Resort for this hike.

The trail head is technically called Beaver Creek Trailhead and it's quite different from your average start point. We parked in the Gerald Ford parking garage and then walked up to the bottom of lift 10 where the trail technically starts. From here, if you look up the mountain to your right, you can see a maintenance shed and a few signs that lead towards Beaver Lake and the Five Senses Trail. This trail will go past some maintenance sheds, small creeks, and a very rich neighborhood until you finally get outside of the official resort and start your uphill trek to Beaver Lake.

The hike to Beaver Lake is a little under 3 miles but it's a solid uphill trek. Luckily the path is fairly shaded and you follow a creek the majority of the time so it was a nice change of pace from our 14er last week. This part of the trail can get fairly busy as families go to Beaver Lake a lot but once we moved past it, we only saw one other person all day. Below is a picture of Beaver Lake.

After you get past Beaver Lake, the trail takes a more wooded/gradual uphill route than the first part. You continue weave around a river the majority of the time which is very pretty and offered some good background noise. About 5 miles into the hike you start to come across quite a few valleys as well that look like a perfect location for deer/moose but unfortunately we only saw one deer all day.

The picture below is ~.25 miles from Lower Turquoise Lake and ~1 mile from Upper Turquoise Lake. We started to see a lot of wildflowers around this area which was very pretty.

Below is a picture of Upper Turquoise Lake. Overall it was a pretty nice lake but unfortunately the wildfires were fairly bad and there was quite a bit of smoke/haze in the air which made some of the views not as clear as usual.

All-in-all I really enjoyed the hike. As I mentioned previously, it was a great change of pace after doing a 13er and 14er the last few weeks. This trail was very wooded and had a lot of water with creeks and 3 lakes. We ended up hiking ~15.5 miles in total with around a 3,000 elevation gain. So it was definitely a long hike but since the elevation was lower, it didn't feel nearly as bad.

Pikes Peak

Since Ali and I knocked out a 13er last weekend, this weekend we decided to hit up a 14er. After doing some quick weather research, our best chance to not get wet was down south, so we headed to Pikes Peak.

There are a few different ways to hike Pikes Peak but the easiest day trip I could find (other than obviously driving it), was via Crags Trail. According to All Trails, this is 12.6 miles long with a lovely 4,468 elevation gain. My Gamin had is at 14.29 miles but it tends to shoot high from time to time.

As soon as you start this trail, it's a solid uphill climb. The first few miles are in and out of the woods until you get above the treeline and have a fairly sucky push uphill in the sun to Devil's Playground. There is one fairly long ridge before getting to the Playground that levels out some and gives you a nice view of Pike's Peak as well as Mueller State Park to the west.

Once you get past that ridge, you have to cross the Pike's Peak Tollway and then continue the trail on the east side. There are parts of the trail that run right beside the road which isn't ideal but then other sections that veer off and gives you some good views. The picture below is Pike's in the distance.

The final stretch of the trip is zig zagging back and forth between a fairly large boulder field. You had to do some scrambling but it wasn't bad at all. Once you get past that, you are afforded a lovely view of 50+ vehicles where people drove up and a lot of construction.

Overall it was a pretty tough hike since you were going uphill constantly and it was fairly high elevation. I'm glad we did it but it definitely wasn't one of my favorite hikes due to how many people were on the trail and having to deal with the road/traffic at the top of the mountain. 

Arapaho Glacier Trail

This summer has been pretty busy with random weekend activities so we haven't gotten up to the mountains as much as we want. Luckily we both had the 4th of July aka "Murica Day, off so we decided to get away with a long hike. The hike that we picked was Arapaho Glacier Trail via Rainbow Lakes Trail head. This trail head is about 30 min northwest or Nederland. The first part of the drive is very easy with nice paved roads but the last few miles is bumpy/rocky gravel. It's not terrible by any means, but it's definitely bumpy.

The trail itself starts out with a 2 mile section through the woods. This section keeps a fairly consistent uphill slope and was probably my least favorite part of the hike since there were no views. Once you get out of the woods into the rolling mountains/tundra, you have a view of North Arapaho Peak and the Boulder Watershed.

You are in a fairly exposed section of the trail gradually working your way up switchbacks on both rides of the ridge. Until you cross over to the south side, you are constantly going up but the other side levels off a little until you get to South Arapaho Peak. This section was very pretty as you could see multiple lakes, the peaks, tons of wild flowers, etc. Then you cross over to the south side and you get better views of snow capped mountains, the 4th of July trail head, and other lakes. I would just recommend watching the weather closely as you don't want to get caught in a storm out there. There is no cover at all and you are at ~12,000 feet. We luckily had good weather but it was pretty windy on the north side.

After about 6.3 miles in, according to my Garmin, we got to the overlook of the glacier. It's fairly similar views of the watershed you had on the way up but you get a lot better look at the sheer size of the peak and the glacier itself.

From there it was a short but fairly vertical hike up to the top as you can see from the pictures above. At the top, we were around 13,356 on the south peak and the north peak was a few hundred feet taller but we didn't do it. After the glacier overlook, there was a "trail" but it was quite a bit of scrambling to get up but nothing technical at all. This was by far my favorite part of the hike.

All in all, my GPS said we ended up going 13.96 miles after doing some random walking out and taking pictures. I would highly recommend this hike to anyone as the views were pretty solid the majority of the hike. The Rainbow Lakes Trail head also wasn't very busy at all but the peak was due to the 4th of July Trail head only about about 3 - 4 miles from it.

Whistler

Well, it's been quite a while since my last post so I guess I have a little updating to do. Overall it's been a fairly warm and dry winter in Colorado. We've only made it to Keystone a handful of times and the snow hasn't been great. So for the most part we've stuck to some front range hiking and basement remodeling.

That being said, this update deals with Whistler, BC, which is definitely not having a dry winter at all. We've always wanted to go there and now that Vail Resorts bought them out last year our Epic Local Pass is good for Whistler and Blackcomb. So... we went!

The trip to get there was quite a trek from Denver. The direct flights were fairly pricey so we had to hop through LAX and then to Vancouver. From Vancouver it was about a 2.5 hour bus ride to the resort. Unfortunately for us it was pretty foggy/dreary on the ride up so we didn't get to see a lot of the coast/city. However on our way back it was a lot better and there were some very pretty views.

Once we got to Whistler it was pretty similar to most mountain resorts minus one major difference, it was raining. I don't think I've ever been to a ski resort during winter and have it rain on me. After a little Google-age, we found out the base of Whistler is only 2,198 feet and the top if it is around 7,500. This is a big change from what we're used to in Colorado where the top of Breckenridge is around 13,000. Luckily for us the rain stopped for the most part and the rest of the week and we just had a little slushy snow from time to time..

Our first day on the mountain was on the Whistler side. Due to wind and foggy conditions, the top few chairs such as Harmony and Peak Express were closed so we stuck to the middle section. Luckily for us it had been snowing quite a bit and if you got off the main trail at all you'd be rewarded with ~1 foot of fresh powder. There were a lot of tree areas to pop in and out of as well as some pretty good views of the lake beside Creekside at the bottom of the mountain, as you can see from the picture below. Overall day one was definitely a success. My biggest issue with was that there were quite a few catwalk/flat areas where snowboarders could easily get stuck if they didn't have a lot of speed.

Our next day on the mountain was focused on the Blackcomb side. This side of the mountain seemed a little more chill than Whistler but overall the terrain was similar. Unlike the first day where it was foggy/windy at the top of the mountain, this day the clouds were in the middle, so we primarily stuck to Glacier and 7th Heaven Express with a few runs on Jersey Cream and Excelerator mixed in. 

Glacier was one of my favorite lifts the entire trip. At the top there were some cliff/rock areas that you could weave in and out of and towards the bottom you could go through a lot of trees. Yet again, we were lucky that the majority of the runs we hit had around 4 - 8 inches of snow on it. The only downfall of this area is when it's cloud/foggy, the terrain was very hard to see and their cliff signs were far from good. Once you get off the main trail, you have to be careful of where you are at and what's in front of you.

For day three, we started out on the Whistler side doing the top section we didn't get to previous and then ping ponged around the mountain depending on lift lines and visibility. This was probably the worse day for visibility overall as it was hard to find a spot where it wasn't a least a little foggy. We spend the majority of the morning on Harmony Express which was a lot of fun minus not being able to see at the top. It started out winding around on a fairly narrow trail which I wasn't a fan of but about 2 minutes down it opened up and gave you a lot of flexibility of where to go which was fun.

If I had to pick one lift you have to hit on the Whistler side it's definitely Peak Express. There are some amazing views at the top (if you are lucky enough to see them) and some very large cliffs/boulders. I didn't do a whole lot of runs up there due to the top of the trail being windblown and frozen over which was not fun with steep terrain. If you take the Upper Peak to Creek run all the way down to Creekside though, it's worth the trip to the top. This is a very large run that gives you a little bit of everything. The only downfall of the run is you go through a lot of different snow types. At the top it was windy and frozen, top middle was amazing powder, middle was icey, and then the bottom was slushy. This was pretty normal for my Whistler experience so I'd recommend finding the good stuff and staying in that section of the mountain.

After a few runs over there I took the peak to peak gondola to finish the day on Blackcomb. This Gondola is pretty amazing and has the record for longest unsupported span of 1.88 miles and highest lift of 1,427 ft. It takes ~11 minutes to get across and it's definitely worth the time.

All-in-all, we had an amazing time and I'm definitely glad we went. Due to the visibility and rain/ice/slush issues toward the bottom of the mountain, I'm not sure if I'd ever go back as there are a lot of other mountains I want to visit. But I think everyone should at least make it once. The top of the mountain with the cliffs, glades, and trees are amazing if the conditions are right. I like the concept that some of these runs felt more like you were not on a resort due to the terrain you got to play in.

If you want to see anymore pictures, they can be found here.

A quick rundown on the foot situation for anyone that is curious:

• Sushi Village - The sushi was really good but the other dishes weren't that good. Pretty solid strawberry Sake margarita. 
• Longhorn Saloon & Grill - We only got drinks here but it's a very fun atmosphere right beside the lifts.
• Black's Pub - Irish bar with karaoke and other festivities. 
• Tapley's Neighbourhood Pub - This was one of the few places we found to have cheaper drinks and dartboards.
• Earls Kitchen and Bar - Earls is slightly fancier American-ish style food. I had an amazing Cajun steak and the atmosphere is really nice. This was my favorite meal all week.
• Keg Steakhouse & Bar - The food here is fairly pricey but they have a lot of tvs and it was good to hang out there and watch some games.
• Brew House - This is probably one of the cooler hang out spots as far as the building/atmosphere goes. We just had a few drinks but I'd highly recommend going here and then swinging by Whistler Olympic Plaza.
• Mongolie Grill - My second favorite place to eat was here but it's also pretty dangerous as you get charged per pound and it's fairly pricey. It's a fun experience though getting to pick all of your food and see them cook it for you.