In terms of area, Colorado’s San Juan mountains are the largest mountain range in the state. Whereas other ranges are more or less linear, the San Juans comprise a vast wilderness area of something like 4,000 square miles in the southwest corner of the state.
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You may have noticed It’s been a while since I’ve spewed forth any kind of hiking post on this here cavalcade of outdoor adventure.
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We’ve been having what can rightfully be described as a spectacular fall season in Colorado. Weeks of crisp, clear evenings and cloudless bluebird days with high temperatures in the 70s. While the leaves are gone from the aspens, the cottonwoods and birches in the valleys are all brilliant shades of yellow and orange.
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Is it possible for people to love the outdoors too much? Studies have shown that getting out in nature is one of the best things you can do for both mind and body. But is it good for nature? How many people can nature sustain before it stops being nature?
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Pikes Peak — America’s Mountain, America the Beautiful, purple mountain majesties and all that. Something I’ve been wanting to do for some time is to ride it. With summer starting to wind down, it occurred to me that I better get cracking if I was going to do it this year.
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After my recent ignoble defeat on the Wetterhorn, I was thinking that I would be ending my 2022 climbing season on a down note.
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In my ongoing pursuit to climb Colorado’s 14ers, so far I have managed to finish 18 out of 58 of them. That puts me squarely in the beginner-intermediate category, I think. This year I’ve been trying to improve my skills and fitness by focusing on longer and more difficult climbs. And so far, I’ve had success.
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Peak bagging is a strange pastime. Getting up at gawdawful hours of the morning, driving all over the state to spend all day walking up and down steep slopes until your toenails turn black all because a mountain appears on some arbitrary list. Is a 13,000-foot mountain less worthy of climbing than a 14,000-foot mountain? No. But the 14,000-foot mountain is on a list. Actually, the 13,000-foot mountain is on a list too, a different list. But one list at a time.
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