a former gymnast with a neverending case of wanderlust
With all the focus on climbing 14ers, sometimes its easy to forget that there are 1000s of shorter mountains in Colorado as well. All mountains I climb, regardless of elevation, will be in this category.
Let’s begin by answering the obvious question: it’s pronounced mess-tah-HAY. Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain is named for a Cheyenne woman who was also known as Owl Woman. Owl Woman was married to William Bent, a white settler, trader, and co-founder of Bents Old Fort trading post on the plains of Colorado in the 1800s. Their marriage was… Continue reading Colorado Summits: Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain
About a month after summiting three 13ers in one day, I found myself back in the very same area as I made my way toward the summit of the adjacent 13,294 foot (4052 m) mountain: James Peak. It’s one that I’d wanted to climb for a couple years now, although I don’t know why, out… Continue reading Colorado 13ers: James Peak
I skipped a hike. I don’t know how it happened, but I did. Back in early August 2021, Chelsea and I summitted 13er Hagar Mountain together. When I got home, I recorded it on my hike spreadsheet. I even started writing this post. But somehow, I never actually finished the write up or uploaded it to WordPress… a fact I didn’t realize until I was sorting through some photos last week. So this is a little (okay, a lot) out of chronological order, but here we go… Hagar Mountain. Pronounced 'hay-gar' or 'hay-gur' I assume, but I actually have no idea.
Sometimes, a hike ends up being more laid back than you thought it would be and goes more quickly than you expected. And sometimes, a hike is far more intense than you anticipated and it takes 8 hours to hike 7 miles (11.3 km). This hike was one of the latter. Chelsea and I set… Continue reading Colorado 13ers: Mount Bancroft, Parry Peak, and Mount Eva
On so many occasions since moving to Colorado, Pat and I have been sitting at a lake gazing up at the surrounding mountains, pointed, and said “whoa look, there’s a person up there!" Well... this time I was the person up there, gazing down on half a dozen lakes from a 13,596 foot (4144 m) summit in the Tenmile Range.
It was a long time coming, but 2021 was the year Chelsea and I finally stood atop Hallett Peak! I don’t remember when we originally decided we wanted to do this hike, but it was a while ago. The first time we made plans for it, Chelsea had to cancel. The second time, I was… Continue reading Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Flattop Mountain and Hallett Peak
I’ve been hiking since I was too young to remember, and in that time I’ve accumulated quite a few hiking accomplishments. But one thing I’d never done in all 32 years of my life was go hiking alone. In general, I don’t consider myself an anxious person. Sure, I have my moments of anxiety when… Continue reading Colorado 14er #2: Mount Bierstadt
The wild fluctuations and extremes of mountain weather is something that can be hard to grasp, particularly for someone who hasn’t spent much time in them. Hell, I’ve spent most of my life living near and exploring the mountains, and I still underestimate them from time to time. Mountains do weird and intense things to… Continue reading Colorado Summits: Greyrock Mountain
It’s not every day that you hike a trail and find yourself nearly face-to-face with its namesake animal. But such was the case on Deer Mountain. (Better than coming face-to-face with a bear on Bear Peak, I suppose…) There were four of them, and they couldn’t have been more than 15 feet (4.5 m) away.… Continue reading Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Deer Mountain
2020 was a rough year for all of us, Rocky included. First, the park was closed for weeks in the spring due to the pandemic. Then it closed again for 15 days in October and November due to forest fires. In all, nearly 30,000 acres of the park burned. It was absolutely devastating to watch… Continue reading Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Twin Sisters Peak
Handstands Around the World 