I'm on vacation this week and spent the past few days hiking in Crested Butte. These photos were taken mostly from the top of West Maroon Pass at around 12,500 feet in the Maroon Bells Wilderness Area. You can also reach this pass from Aspen, a hike that we did several years ago. It's much easier from the Crested Butte side, shorter and not nearly so steep. Still, it was 8 miles round trip with the last mile to the pass being a pretty steep climb.We were fortunate to have perfect weather and little to no wind at the pass so I took a bunch of pictures. When we did this from the Aspen side the strong wind at the pass was so cold and horrible that we barely spent a few minutes at the top before beating it back to lower and warmer ground.
The hike is completely exposed except for a few minutes through some woods at the very start so you're treated to beautiful unobstructed mountain views in all directions for nearly the whole hike. Jonny and I both agreed that this was one of our favorite hikes ever. We ran into a woman from Oregon who said she hikes a lot in the Cascades but that this was a truly amazing experience.
My knee held up no problem, most of the hike wasn't that steep. I'm not even sore today, just a bit stiff from the 4 3/4 hour drive back to Boulder. It was a wonderful vacation and I was thrilled to be able to take all 3 dogs (they were all so good!) but it's great to be home again. I'll try to get more photos posted later to my Flickr account but I've been having some problems with it.
Fantastic rocks, clear weather, stunning scenery - and early snow, too.
ReplyDeleteAutumn in the mountains - what a wonderful combination that is.
"Wow," said Elf. I was just talking with my Mom this morning about the brief time that we lived in Colorado when I was young. She said "we loved it there" but if only dad's job hadn't gone away.
ReplyDelete-ellen
Great photos! I used to live in Gunnison and just love the Crested Butte area!
ReplyDeleteWhaaaaa! I wanna live where you live.
ReplyDelete/amy