Herman Gulch

Okay so here's a little brag...I just completed my first hike to 12K feet!  I know, I know...it's not a 14er but still pretty good for this ol' flat-lander! My friend Christine and I got up to the trail early to get make sure we were up to the top of the trail by noon. This time of year there are lightening storms (especially above the tree line) that pop up every afternoon and the recommendation is that all hikers need to be off the top of any mountain no later 1 pm to avoid these deadly storms.  

It was a beautiful hike tho.  On the first part of the trail we came across a momma moose and her calf, which was really cool, but also really dangerous. Especially with four dogs that could have easily spooked her.  Fortunately Christine's dogs are very well trained and they stayed right by us and didn't bark or make any "aggressive" sounds when they saw them. They say that a mother moose is actually more aggressive when people are around their calves than mother bears are.  There have been 3 moose attacks so far this summer on hikers that have startled them. Here's the one picture I was able to take of the mom. Can you see her?

I will have to admit- The hike itself was pretty hard.  It was only a 3.5 mile one-way route to a gorgeous Alpine lake at the end of the trail but I swear it felt like we hiked a LOT farther than that.  Mainly because the trail went straight up with very few switchbacks. 

Yup that's a steep hike ahead of us

Snow melt still coming down

 

Lower peaks that we passed on the way up

Yup we ended all the way up to the basin of this peak.

Half-way there

View back down the mountain valley

On the way up (and down) we passed beautiful fields of wildflowers, including thousands of blue Columbines (Colorado State Flower).

Lupine and daisy

Columbine

Loads of wildflowers everywhere

We hiked up high enough on the mountain that we were above the tree line.  We had to walk through lots of unmelted snow from last year's snowfall. They say it's called Apache snow:  A patch here and a patch there...

So this was what we hiked up the mountain to see.  Yes, you can surely see that it was totally worth the effort!

Hike back down the mountain

And wouldn't you know it...about a mile from the parking lot the sky opened up and it started pouring on us like crazy.  You can just imagine what the car smelled like traveling back to Denver with four wet dogs and two wet gals!


So now that I've conquered a 12Ker I think a 14er is on my bucket list now!