2nd Anniversary – Part 2

We arrived back at the house at 2am quickly showered and went to bed as we were both barely awake when we finally got home.

By 9am I couldn’t sleep anymore and got the idea that we should go to Six Flags – Elitch Gardens and have some fun. Colleen thought the lines would be too long but I told her school had already started and it wouldn’t be that bad.

We were out the door an hour later and then quickly realized that Six Flags also operates heavily on cash and not Check Card. Parking was $15, and even with that price we had to park ourselves! Ridiculous!

Luckily we bought our tickets online and saved $20 and could skip the ticket booth and walk right on in.

Once inside we instantly headed for the biggest and best rides. We did the roller coaster “Mind Eraser” where your feet dangle as the roller coaster does flips and stuff and boy did that get our breakfast moving! The lines weren’t bad and quickly did Superman where you lay down flat and do a roller coaster (didn’t like that one so much). We did like the one where they put you in the cage and raise you all the way up and then drop you straight down, however the ride is so short!

We completed the roller coaster circuit by heading over for Twister II, but not before doing this Jukebox thing where some 14 year old kid holds your life in his hands as he twirls you around 75 feet in the air on a contraption that doesn’t feel very safe. And the weird noises coming from the arms didn’t help. Finally we did Boomerang, and it did us in. Too many coasters too fast and we were sick to our stomachs and decided to go get lunch.

It turns out the line for Panda Express was the longest line we would wait in all day. Not to mention it was nearly $10 for one persons meal.

After lunch we went around and played the games at Six Flags. I almost won the ladder game, and the circle of imagination game or whatever it is called. We did get tweety hats from the ring toss game, but generally after lunch we just hung out and watched other people.

It’s interesting to see how people behave with their kids. Some buy them everything they want, some buy them nothing, others look like they came as a family but didn’t know where their family were.

All in all I would go again, but they need to do something about the prices. But I heard Elitch Gardens is up for sale, so maybe there is a change in store for our closest theme park.

2nd Anniversary – Part 1

So for our second anniversary, Colleen and I decided to do something different. We decided to head up to Central City and Blackhawk on Saturday night and spend $40 at the casino having fun, plus go out for a nice meal.

For those of you that don’t know, Central City and Blackhawk are towns in Colorado that allow gambling (with $5 max bet) and thus have casinos.

Of course we didn’t make the decision to head up there until about 4pm and since we thought we *might* stay the night we decided to drop Sooner off at Jennifer’s. On the way out of town we stopped at Starbucks (our drink of choice) since we were going to be staying up after midnight.

We arrived in Central City about after an hour of driving and cannot believe how old-fashioned everything looked. I guess I was picturing something more like the famous strips of Vegas.

We decided to press on to Blackhawk and eventually decided to park in the garage at the Isle of Capri. All the spots were taken save ONE and we grabbed it and headed into the lobby where we asked about rooms. Haha. We are apparently gambling virgins because the lady (dressed in the most flourescent shirt you can imagine) half laughed at us and said they were all full and the rates were $188 per night. HOLY cow.

We headed over to Ameristar casino because that’s where Jennifer said she had the most fun. I have to admit, it is one step up from kiddie land (Isle of Capri) in terms of class.

Of course it was weird not hearing the clanking of chips falling out the bottom of the machines and we wondered why everybody had these cards inserted into the machine while attached to their hip with these stretchy clips . Kind of like it was their IV life support. Not to mention half of the gamblers were sitting there lifeless hitting the max bet button and watching the little things spin and dazzle before their eyes.

So, here’s where the embarassing part comes in.

Colleen and I didn’t exactly know how to get one of those cards or if they were needed or how to play the machines — Neither of us had been gambling at a casino before. So we went up to the cashier and asked her what we were supposed to do to play the games. Her jaw dropped open and looked at us like we were the stupidest people on the planet. Umm…Yeah……

After she recovered she told us to go stand in line to get a card so that we could get signed up to forever get junk mailings from the casino and then the card keeps track of “bonus points” and other misc. comps that really is a cover for, “the casino wants demographic statistics to which games you play and which games you lose the most money the quickest.”

Then we realized that nobody takes our Visa Bank Card except the stupid ATM machines that charge out the rear end for fees. But you need cash to play the games. *sigh* Why we didn’t think about this before hand I have no idea. Everything was based on cash and we don’t carry cash. Grrrrrrr…..

After getting cash we then discovered the coolest part of the whole experience. Free drinks. While most people were having beer, (I had one), we decided to hit the caffeine because we needed to stay up. Did I mention they had a Starbucks inside the casino?

Colleen and I couldn’t figure out the purpose of half the games, so we stuck to the simple slot machines with sevens on them. After a while we decided to take a break and go eat at the fancy grill they have there in the casion where the cheapest thing is $19. Oh well, it’s our Anniversary Dinner.

I got the prime rib and Colleen ate my salad. Haha, our waiter didn’t really like it but he was going to have to live with it. They had really good bread that was brought out on this warming contraption.

The night flew by and Colleen and I had the most fun just watching other people lose their entire paycheck. I did get addicted to this lemming game, and for the silliest reason. I liked the sounds it had. (Pathetic…I know)

They had a lot of Texas Hold ‘Em tables but we decided not to play. All told we spent $31 at the Casino (under our $40 budget) and $30 at the fancy restaurant. We played one $5 game once and of course lost, but the lady who walked up right after us played it once and one $125. Double GRRRR! However, the most we saw one was this Asian lady that won $18,000 and was being escorted out of the building. I guess they don’t want you winning that much!

It was now 1am and we drove the entire way back down the mountain and hit the sack…but just in time for….

Part 2 will come later…(when I get time)

Haven’t Posted in a While…

So when I started the transition from my old “static” website (version 2.0) to this one (version 3.0) I was for sure I’d be done by now. I have about 40 pages to still convert and I’m now forcing myself to do one page each time I sit down at the computer so it will just get over with.

I finally finished getting Sooner’s dog door installed. The hold-up was getting the security system re-wired through the door. Instead of going with the door that goes through your drywall, Colleen was smart enough to get the one that fits into the sliding glass door.

In other news they are building a Chili’s within 5 minutes of our house! This is one of our favorite restaurants because they make good, inexpensive food. We can get the endless chips and share one entree and after tax and tip only have $13 in damage.

Our church league softball team is hilarious. We haven’t won a game in two seasons and on Tuesday we had a game won. We were leading 9-6 and it was the bottom of the 6th and we were the home team. All we had to do is kill 2 minutes and 30 seconds. If the time expires, they won’t start the 7th inning. Well….needless to say, all three of our batters swung at the first pitch and it was a 3-up, 3-down inning and the other team was in the batters box reading to start the top of the 7th inning with 10 seconds to go. *sigh* It goes without saying that they tied it up in the 7th and we failed to score any runs and the game went to extra innings where we lost. It’s almost comical how we are losing games anymore.

This weekend (well really August 21st) is our 2-year anniversary! It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 years already but I’m sure that’s what everybody says. We haven’t decided what we are doing because we are waiting on the weather report to figure out where we might want to go. I’m sure I’ll have something to post about when we get back.

Sunlight Pk – South Slopes

Date: July 25, 2006
Elevation: 14,059′
Rank: 39th
Route: South Slopes, Grade II, Class 4, 17.6 miles, 5860ft vert.
GPS: N 37° 37.667′ W 107° 35.733′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Rick Esser (Dad)

Pre-climb: Ever since I first started reading Gerry Roach’s book, “Colorado Fourteeners”, I was amazed that were still some mountains so remote that you had to ride a train to get to the closest trailhead. I looked forward to the day that I’d finally get to ride that train to Needleton and climb “the most remote 14ers in Colorado”.

Well four and a half years after I climbed my first 14er, it was time. My parents were up for a week in Purgatory and I needed no further excuse to get away from the heat of Denver and head for the hills.

Climb: My mom never thought we’d make the train.

You see, the trip itinerary was already falling apart. It all started on Saturday when my mom wanted to leave my house in Brighton by 8am. Well, the Tour de France was on and I wanted to see Floyd Landis win the final time trial. We finally left at 10am. She wanted to take a shortcut to Waunita Hot Springs using a road that only appears on your map if you use a magnifying glass, it’s Tuesday and you have GPS navigation. Needless to say, we missed it. Then she wanted to go over Owl Creek Pass. Well, it was thunderstorming and we were running out of daylight. We finally arrive at the cabin only to wake up to perfect blue skies and my dad and I decided to climb Sneffels…unscheduled. Now you have to understand, to do something of this magnitude that wasn’t on the intinerary is unheard of. Like vacuuming in the Olympics. It just doesn’t happen. But it did. And it caused my dad and I to not pack that evening. Mostly my fault, but I digress, waiting until the last minute is always when I do my best packing.

We had to leave the cabin by 7am so we could be in Durango by 8am, pick our tickets up by 8:15 and be on the train before it leaves at 9am. Well it was 7:15am and I’m trying to make sure I don’t forget packing someting important, like, oh, our TENT and my mom is threating us by saying they are going to sell our tickets on ebay if we don’t get there by 8:15. Ok, so she didn’t say ebay, but a high stress environment isn’t the best way to relax on vacation. We got on the Vicki Express at 7:30am and had the quickest ride to Durango that I can’t believe didn’t get caught. It turned out we were packed, loaded, ticketed, boarded, seated, and photographed by 8:30. What was the worry?

The employees of the Durango/Silverton Train tried to sell us all their magazines, DVDs and other touron material but there’s not much good that’s going to do us up in the mountains for 3 days. However, the train ride itself was enjoyable and I do recommend riding it once (one way if you aren’t hiking) if you’ve never done it before, don’t mind cinders in your eye and you don’t sit next to a crying baby. But again, I digress.

After a few stops we finally arrived at Needleton which is where they drop off the hikers/backpackers and people so drunk they think it’s a pit stop. It was a zoo unloading everybody’s packs and you could quickly identify the people who had to pack under high stress situations. I won’t mention any names.

Not much later my dad and I had changed into our boots and were off across the bridge that they are replacing in a couple months. It wasn’t a bad bridge really, but I guess you don’t want a bridge getting to a point where people call it bad. Heh.

The first part of the trail is really flat and my dad and I made great time carrying the heavy packs to the sign in register where we read that there was a place to checkmark if your mode of travel was “Llama”. Haha. I don’t know about you, but if you could somehow get llamas to this point, I bet you could charge top dollar for the service.

We started hiking and not very far into the hike you pass over this bridge with this close-up waterfall. You’d think you would see people taking a picture of it, but not here. There were some serious backpackers hoofing it up the trail not even stopping at what I consider a rest area. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there was a father and son trying to fish the waterfall. Now, I know I’m not the best fisherman this side of the Mississippi, but I don’t think many fish are looking for a bite to eat as they are hurdled over a cliff. Now, if you had a giant net out, I could see that, but using a fly rod just seemed flat out the wrong tool to use to catch fish.

Then the honeymoon was over. It was now time to do some serious hiking. The clouds were rolling in and we could hear the thunder booming off the mountains around us, but due to being so far down in the trees we had limited sky we could see above and didn’t know how long it would be before it would dump on us. Then, as if we weren’t sweating enough the trail decides to go on this neverending incline (without switchbacks mind you) for *miles*. Even if you were Arnold Schwarzen-hiker this section will give you a stiff wakeup call. Here I thought this “remote hike into a beautiful basin” was going to be strawberry fields and happy trails. I’m telling you this, it’s a hike, and you better have tons of bug spray.

Speaking of which, the fly population has mutated into minature flying roaches due to the fact that there seem to be nothing that eats them in the area. My dad and I tried to spray deet over our body again and again but these super flies have become immune to it or something. And then it started. It began to lightly rain. We quickly threw on our rain gear and covered our packs just in time before it started raining harder. Then, after about 5 minutes it stopped raining. But only because it was now hailing. We hid under a tree to wait it out. There was no sense in hiking in the rain in order to get to camp sooner. It’s not like we would get out our tent while it was hailing, so we waited for it to pass over as we sat under a tree. At least the swarm of bugs had stopped.

Eventually, after checking my GPS many times, we made it to the infamous meadow that hikers think is “around the next corner” for the last 2 miles. The clouds subsided and my dad and I were getting pretty beat. Some hikers take multiple days to hike up into Chicago Basin. Our schedule didn’t allow us that luxury. We had to be back down at the trail stop Wednesday at 3:45pm or my mom would have a long train ride back to Durango wondering what happened to us.

Pressing on we eventually found a spot about 300ft before the junction with the Columbine Pass trail where we could setup our tent. I immediately had to take an hour nap, just to get back the energy to make dinner. (aka boiling water) My dad made friends with the mountain goats and filtered water and after dinner we both slept soundly in the surprisingly warm evening. But not before testing out one final product.

You see, after reading about how many goats and marmots there were in the area, and how they weren’t afraid of humans, there was only one thing that would keep them away from your tent while you were sleeping or climbing — Coyote Urine. I’m not kidding. What’s worse is that you can actually buy this stuff from Sportsman Warehouse on their “Wall O’ Urine”. We tested it out by squirting two drops on rocks all around and tent and sure enough. The goats would come closer but never inside the circle that we sprayed. Amazing. I do have to say though, this stuff really stinks and we had it double zip-locked and everything. Pick some up for your next climb!

Now about those fourteeners.

Our “plan” was to climb Sunlight and Windom, then, on the day we were to hike back down to the trailhead climb Eolus and North Eolus. Well, our “plan” hadn’t walked in our shoes, and more importantly carried our packs up a giant hill for 6 miles so we modified our plan to one fourteener the entire trip. That’s right. Seventeen point six miles for one summit.

We left camp (11,000ft) at 7am and began the steep hike up to Twin Lakes. To get to where you can see these lake is reserved for those that really like sweating a lot, or have the intelligence to rent a llama, sherpa or both. I was thinking this was remote, but Holy Channel Changer! This is remote!

After an hour and a half we climbed one mile (and more importantly 1,500ft vertically) and finally arrived at the lakes. My dad proceeded to take off his shoes and lay in the sun while a goat sniffed his food and I was too tired to do anything about it other than take pictures of the entire event.

The route from here was pretty straightforward and not so bad for the next 0.7 miles as we climbed to 13,300ft.

As we turned north towards the summit however, we thought we were a lot closer than we were. By GPS we were not far at all from the summit, however, we couldn’t see it. We pressed on to the saddle between Sunlight and Sunlight Spire.

We ran into two guys on the saddle coming down from the summit (the first two people we’ve seen on this route the entire day) and I asked them how far we were from the summit thinking it was minutes away. They told me it was still 30 minutes of work over Class 4 boulders to get to it. *Sigh*

I dropped my poles and decided to climb up a few rocks to see if I could see anything, but I couldn’t. It was too much work to try and climb down and look for another route (or so I thought) so I kept climbing. Pretty soon I found myself on some pretty hairy stuff and got disappointed with everything I saw in front of me. I continued on and eventually noticed a much easier trail to my left but I now had to get down to it. I decided to just climb over what I climbed up and meet up with it at a flat area. At this point I waited for my dad. He was nowhere in sight.

I yelled for him and called him on his radio but there was no response. Here I was, probably 100ft from the summit and I couldn’t find my dad. What happened to him? I was at a place where I could see most the route from the saddle but yet I couldn’t find him. I waited 15 minutes for him but he never appeared into my radar. I called again on the radio but no response. Finally after some yelling he responded and said that he was just going to wait down by where I had dropped my poles. He had gone far enough. And apparently the radio was forgotten back at camp.

I saw what I thought was the keyhole to my right and went through it. Oh. My. Gosh. I almost cried when I saw what I thought was the rest our the route. It was crazy, insane steep and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I know this was a Class 4 climb (the hardest 14er by the standard route if the hardest route is judged by the hardest move) but this looked ridiculous. The problem was, I was stuck. I had climbed out onto a ledge where I saw a cairn, which I can’t imagine who would be coming up this way, but my backpack got stuck and I couldn’t move without taking my pack off. I unbuckled the straps and slowly peeled it off my back so it didn’t disturb my balance on this thin ledge and then thought about tossing it down. Then I remembered. People online have lamented about times they have tossed their packs to watch it tumble all the way down the mountain never to be recovered. It was almost out of my fingertips when I remembered this and clutched it at the last moment. How was I going to move? I couldn’t go up, I couldn’t go down, and I’m holding onto my pack dangling between my legs. Finally rational thought entered my brain and said, “Matt, you need to use your carabiner and clip your pack onto your belt so it hangs below you and try and get back to the other side of the keyhole.”

Well, the problem with this was I couldn’t step down because my pack was suspended in air where I was wanting to try and place my feet. Eventually after a few tries I lowered my body as low as I could, kicked it out of the way and placed my foot where I prayed there would be a rock that would hold me and got off the ledge of death. I made my way back through the keyhole and thought about things.

I was by myself with my dad barely in shouting distance and I couldn’t seem to find the final route up Sunlight. There were no other hikers around and the clouds were now noticeably bigger. Thirty more minutes had passed and I know my dad would start to wonder where I’ve gone. I took off my pack to see what I could find.

I almost turned around at this point. The only system of rocks I could see that one could try went straight up and I was tired of climbing rocks that were off-route. If I knew they were on-route they would be a lot of fun but now after going through the “keyhole” that in his DVD Gerry Roach said finding is the key to the route, I began thinking I wouldn’t summit. I decided to only take my camera and gummy bears and leave my pack at the base of the rocks and climb straight up through a crack system.

After four ledges or so it started to level out and then, I saw the true keyhole. There were two. One was apparently just an overlook off the steep side of the mountain (which yes I climbed through) and then this second one that Roach was talking about. I quickly climbed through it and it was glorious finally seeing those familar summit blocks. Finally, I knew I would make it.

I hopped over to where the summit marker and the register were and sat down for a break. I signed in and took a last picture of me since there was nobody else to take my picture in case something happened while I climbed the summit blocks to the REAL summit.

For those of you that don’t know, the summit blocks are about 30ft high and contain the hardest move on any 14er in Colorado. There are three moves to make. The first move isn’t so bad because there is no exposure and it’s a friction climb up to a ledge where you then walkout to your right, then you’ve got to jump a gap and grab a rock on the other side (the move) and then touch or climb the final summit block. Scroll down to look at the picture to see what I’m talking about if you are lost.

Anyhow, I sat my camera and gummy bears down on the summit marker and took a few breaths before I started up the friction climb. It wasn’t bad. I muscled my way up it and walked out to my right and then started to feel a little airy. As I climbed up onto the rock it wasn’t as bad as I imagined but at the same time it was. I knew on the other side of the jump if I overjumped it I’d have problems as it’s straight down for quite a ways. Instead of sitting there forever I just put my foot on the rock and then beached whaled the rock as I jumped. I landed with my stomach on it and hugged it as my feet pedaled for traction and eventually reached equilibrium on the rock. I then stood up and touched the summit rock and then turned around…WHOA! Not so fast as Lee Corso would say.

Going down was way harder than going up. Going up you have something to catch your momentum. Coming down, there’s a nice slide off the mountain if you can’t stop your momentum after your jump. It took me longer going this direction but eventually I got my body and mind in sync and made the jump back down, then, before I had time to realize what I just did, I traversed back to my right and then slide on my butt back down to the safe zone where the summit marker, register and most importantly my gummy bears were. I had a few bites and then decided my dad was probably really wondering where I was and so made quick work getting back down to my pack.

After grabbing my pack I took the trail to my right and as soon as I came around the bend I could see my dad sitting high on a rock right at the saddle. I waved and said I was coming. I was relieved to see him doing well. As I made it back down to him a guy was coming up thinking he was close. I explained to him what lay ahead but told him I didn’t think the weather looked good for him. He pressed on and my dad and I started bolting downhill because the thunder had started. Not long after it started sprinkling. I worried for the guy above us but I felt good knowing I told him my concerns.

Eventually we were back down to Twin Lakes where we saw a group of guys huddling in some boulders. They were from Houston they said waiting for the last person in their party who was supposedly on Sunlight they said. We told them we saw him at the saddle and told him to turn around but he was determined. It was now lightning up on the ridges and we couldn’t see him descending yet.

My dad and I just made it over the ridge on the other side of Twin Lakes when it started to pour. We were at least now only 15 minutes from the trees and below the lake. We continued on to camp and arrived at 3pm.

We both took naps and awoke when it had stopped raining to make dinner. My dad filtered more water and we went to bed early again.

The next morning we awoke to storm clouds. There were people attempting to climb the mountain but I’m sorry. When you see dark clouds at 6am and you are climbing towards them, you are crazy. We started to see people who we got off the train with two days ago make it up to where we were. No wonder on the trail register they had stated they were going to take 5 days to climb.

After the sun reached our campsite we packed everything up, said goodbye to the goats and then let gravity do it’s thing. We flew off the mountain and were back down to Needleton in only 3 hours. It was 12:30pm and the train would arrive at 3:45pm so we had some waiting around to do, but that was just fine by us. We walked down to the Animas River and soaked our feet and enjoyed the break.

The train was a couple minutes late but that was okay, I was about to buy an all you can drink mug of Coke.

Drive: 1h
Train: 2h 30min
To Camp: 8h
Ascent: 5h 30min
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 2h 30min
To TH: 3h
Train: 2h 30min
Drive: 8h

Mt. Sneffels – South Slopes

Date: July 23, 2006
Elevation: 14,150′
Rank: 28th
Route: South Slopes, Grade II, Class 2+, 3.0 miles, 2110ft vert.
GPS: N 38° 0.25′ W 107° 47.533′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Rick Esser (Dad)

Pre-climb: I was headed up to the San Juans to do the Chicago Basin with my dad, however, my mom wanted to go see the wildflowers of Yankee Boy Basin since it was close to where we were staying in Purgatory. You know what that means…since I was already going to be halfway up the 4×4 road into the basin to look at the flowers, I might as well climb Sneffels if the weather was going to be good. However we first had to get there. The drive from Denver took a lot longer than expected, plus we had to make a stop in Waunita Hot Springs to say hello (Since my parents and I have been there a few times before for a whole week at the dude ranch) The ranch is being sold later this year, so this would be our last time to stop there with current management. Anyhow, we finally made it to Purgatory late at night, 10 hours after leaving Denver.

Climb: The first story I had of Mt. Sneffels was from this guy named Paulo who was from Brazil and had to climb it with his father in-law-to-be to prove his worth. After he got back and was able to marry this guys daughter, he lamented over and over how many rocks there were to step over and that any one could snap your leg. Well…he exaggerated a bit. Sneffels isn’t that bad. But it was really funny listening to him.

We had a late start since first of all, I didn’t even know I was going to be climbing Sneffels for sure until about 7am that morning. After some quick breakfast at a cabin in Purgatory (where we were staying), my mom, dad and I headed towards the Yankee Boy turnoff, which is just south of Ouray. The 4×4 road up into Yankee Boy Basin is actually in really great shape. A passenger car can make it a long ways up into the Basin, but after one reaches the port-a-potty the road turns steeper and you need 4-wheel drive.

Arriving at the trailhead of a 14er at 10am was new for me, however the weather was still perfect, no wind and no clouds at all. When my dad saw how close we were to the summit he decided last minute that he wanted to go too. My mom was going to wait in the car at the trailhead as we climbed Sneffels real quick.

The trail is a nice trail until it gets to the turn-off for Blue Lakes Pass. At this point one has to start up the steep pile of loose rocks up what is known as Scree Col or Lavender Col. However, IMHO, anybody who calls it Lavendar Col is doing this route a favor as it’s full of loose scree.

Lavender Col quickly gained elevation as we climbed up the first part of it. Once at the saddle my dad and I took a break and looked up the last 600ft section of now bigger boulders that we would climb over in order to get to the famous “notch” that we would have to go through. Sharing the view on the saddle with us, there was a father and son, however the son was unfortunately experiencing altitude sickness.

We decided to continue on and made quick work of the steep section and arrived at the V-shaped notch which when viewed closely gave us little pause. We efficiently wiggled our way through and the summit was now only a couple hundred feet away and easily attained. We scrambled up the final little bit and sat on top and had our standard snacks. We radioed my mom to let her know we were on the summit, it had taken us 1h 45min to climb it from where we parked.

From the summit we had great views of many 14ers including the Wilsons which I hadn’t seen so well before and we could also see Telluride Ski Area. We decided to stay only 30 minutes on the summit because we didn’t want to keep my mom waiting and there was a guy on the summit who didn’t know how to use a GPS and kept pointing to the wrong mountains. When I offered to help he told me I was wrong and didn’t know what I was talking about so I just left it at that and my dad and I were off.

Once back through the notch the descending was slow (due to being careful not to set off a gigantic rock slide) but pretty straightforward. We were back to the car in just over an hour. I did bash my knee on one rock when it gave out unexpectedly, but other than that the descent was uneventful.

On the way back down Yankee Boy Basin we stopped at Twin Falls to soak our feet and take pictures. Mt. Sneffels has a great view and the north side of this mountain is not to be taken lightly, it’s steep! However, the south side enabled us to climb this great mountain and I enjoyed it more than many of the walkups of the Sawatch range.

Drive: 10h
Ascent: 1h 45min
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 1h 15 min
Drive: 3h