My car whined and groaned in pain as we drove up the county road toward the trailhead of the standard route up Grays and Torreys Peak. “It’s OK, lil’ Subaru,” I reassured the struggling automobile, “you’ve done this before.” Grays and Torreys, by way of their novice and popular standard route, were my fourth and […]
Read more "Aurora Torreyalis"Maybe the depiction on my atlas was deceiving, or maybe we were just victims of my own foolishness, but I definitely thought that Gardner, Colorado—a town with multiple churches and an herb shop—would have a gas station. With a flickering gaslight, we, the Overcast Adventurers and Ty’s friend Seth, opted to purchase five gallons of […]
Read more "Orphans and Endorphins"This past December, at the start of my last winter break, I struck out for a summit attempt of Horseshoe Mountain. This peak is aptly named for its horseshoe-like curvature and can be seen rising high above the South Park Basin, just southwest of Fairplay. It’s Colorado’s 72nd-largest ranked mountain, standing proud at 13,898 feet. […]
Read more "Leavick All Behind"The grimy and over-labored workers of the small mining camp of Buckskin Joe took solace in few things. The miners drudged to find the hidden treasures beneath the granite, the prospectors scoured the land for the promise of riches… but at the end of a hard day these men knew they could reconcile their struggles […]
Read more "Beyond the Veil"Missouri Mountain, Iowa Peak, and Emerald Peak Grand Slam ~15.5 miles round-trip; 6,300′ elevation gain. The turn to Chaffe County Road 390 and its subsequent vexatious washboard ruts felt all too familiar. Five months ago, I had kicked off the 14er season with ascents of Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford—two of the three 14ers […]
Read more "Sawatch Me Do Three"My calling to court did not arrive as a pink letter in the mail. Typically, jury duty might annoy me, but not this time. My summoning to the court occurred when I first laid eyes on the massive stone edifice, Courthouse Mountain—the most prominent peak in the Cimarron Range of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. I […]
Read more "Jury Summons"El Diente Peak. A high mountain summit within the San Juan Range named for its tooth-like visage (El Diente translates to “The Tooth” in Spanish). If this peak is the tooth of the San Juans, then these mountains have clearly forgotten their oral hygiene. El Diente Peak, and its neighboring summits of Mt. Wilson and […]
Read more "Tooth Decay"I vividly remember the first time I knowingly laid eyes on Mt. Ouray (pronounced ooo-ray). Last summer, the Overcast Adventurers had the opportunity to explore the vast reaches of Colorado on a biology class trip called Ecoregions (a blog for which can be found here). It was on the first day of that two-week journey […]
Read more "Labor Day Ouray Soirée"East Slopes. 14.5 miles RT. 4,500′ gain. 6 hours. 20 minutes. High above the iconic Colorado mountain town of Leadville stands Mt. Massive—an aptly named wall of a mountain and several of its constituent sub-summits. It is the third highest peak in the contiguous United States, which is certainly not hard to believe when […]
Read more "Massive Aggressive"Summits always entice me, and Longs Peak is no exception. When I resumed my job in Denver, I became acutely aware of the fact that I could see Longs Peak and Mt. Meeker almost every day on my drive home. There it was, towering over Denver like a faithful guardian of the Front Range. Every […]
Read more "Longs Island Iced Peak"
The Overcast Adventurers 