Ypsilon Way To The Top

With the global situation being such as it is this summer, Rocky Mountain National Park has made the (rather wise) decision to do a slow reopening. Visitors arriving during the day are subject to timed entry restrictions. However, for those willing to be up before the sun, it’s possible to enter the park sans pass […]

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Strawberry Letter

With so much happening in both our personal lives and the broader world, Skyler and I opted for a shorter hike on June 7th. Strawberry Lake, directly East of Granby and south of Lake Granby’s Arapaho Bay, would be about 3.7 miles round-trip according to online sources. The trailhead was easy to miss, as it […]

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This Area Is Closed

Hello? Oh hey, we didn’t see you come in. It’s been a while! Apologies for that. This is not the first hike we’ve attempted in 2020. Though, through a series of not-so-fortunate events, it is the first hike this year worth being written about here. With snow on the decline and temperatures on the rise, […]

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The Amenable Venable Lake

This week we have just a quick post from the b-e-a-utiful Sangre de Cristo Range. The Overcast Adventurers, plus Skyler’s friends Jesse (a returning guest star) and Barkley (a dog), braved glaring sunlight to hike up to Venable Lake. The trailhead for this hike started just past the old towns of Silver Cliff and Westcliffe. […]

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Pacific Bleat

The three of them approached cautiously: their chestnut-brown eyes assessing me, gauging if I were a threat. With quizzical expressions on their wooly faces, the mountain goats passed within reaching distance of me, now disregarding my presence. I moved slowly as not to frighten them. They grazed on the alpine grasses beneath their hooves, and […]

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Hellfire and Brimstone

In our last trip to the Indian Peaks Wilderness, Ty and I trekked alongside the roaring Cascade Creek to find the remote Mirror Lake and Crater Lake, two bodies of water nestled at the foot of the Continental Divide’s western flank. The trail had started near Lake Granby, a hotspot for recreation, and the third-largest […]

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Bluebird is the Word

Back in March, when snow still blanketed the ground in the mountains, I set out into the Wild Basin of Rocky Mountain National Park in an effort to find the sub-alpine Bluebird Lake. I trudged over five miles through the snowy landscape on a bleak, overcast day. After surpassing 10,000 feet in elevation, I began […]

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Conquistador-able

West Spanish Peak—the United States’s easternmost 4,000-meter peak—enjoys prominence in elevation and notoriety in history. Standing at an imposing 13,626 feet, the mountain’s apex may not rise as high as many of the other peaks in Colorado, but still takes the rank as the state’s twelfth-most topographically prominent summit. Rising nearly 7,000′ over its north […]

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Bone Morrow Biopsy

A lazy weekend. My last day of classes. Encroaching finals week. These are the perfect ingredients for end-of-the-semester cabin fever. While there is no known cure for this cabin fever–medically speaking–adventuring seems to usually treat such an ailment. The Hermit’s Rest trail had been on my list for several years. Near the eastern terminus of […]

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Powder to the People

While much of the United States prepared to protest recent political affairs, I stared at the snow incessantly falling outside my apartment window. My thoughts drifted away from academia and to adventure-emia. West Elk Wilderness, one of Colorado’s largest and most immaculate wilderness areas, lies just fifteen minutes away from the campus of my university. […]

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