Kaya and Abe arrived in Boulder the morning of July 22, 2010 and of course I had to immediately take them on my favorite local hike. Here's the "before" picture at the start of the climb of Mount Sanitas.
At the summit, the first of the two after pictures. They took 52:32 to get up. Not bad for coming from sea level with insufficient sleep!
Kaya's just pretending to be mad. They look pretty energetic still. I should have taken their picture at the end of the entire hike! You can see tomorrow's objective, Green Mountain, in the background.
We started at home, went through Fine Park, then Settlers Park, up past Red Rocks, and down to the Mount Sanitas trailhead. Then up the south ridge of Mount Sanitas, down the east ridge, down the Sanitas Valley trail, through the historic district to Pearl Street, to the Mall (where we had a great lunch at the Paradise Cafe), then past Boulder High School to the Boulder Creek path, which we followed home, stopping by the library on the way. Amazingly this whole loop was only 7.6 miles. I'm not sure you could find a hike of similar length with more variety than this one anywhere.
July 23. I took them on a loop hike up Green Mountain, my other local favorite. Here they are at the trailhead two blocks from our home. We started at 6:20am to try to beat the heat. The before picture, again.
Still in a good mood at Panorama Point. Well we only went a mile at this point.
Now we have to lose almost all our elevation.
Ready to start up again from Gregory Canyon.
Heading up the Amphitheater Trail.
Taking a rest at a viewpoint which I don't think was Saddle Rock.
This looks like Saddle Rock to me. But I couldn't figure out how to get to it.
Nearing the summit of Green Mountain, Longs Peak came into view.
The final trail to the summit. Kaya's just pretending to be tired.
See, still in a good mood with the summit in sight.
Okay, maybe it was still a little tough.
Nice view down at the foothills.
Nearing the summit. It took us 2:40 to reach it from home.
On the summit of Green Mountain with Longs Peak in the distance. An Australian woman took our photo but included her hand as well. Amazingly the summit was the first place we ran into other hikers that day.
Longs Peak from the summit.
South and North Arapaho Peaks on the left, and Mount Audubon just right of center. I climbed all three earlier in the summer, along with Longs of course.
Closeup of South and North Arapaho, the ridge connecting them which I climbed along, and the glacier below.
More summit scenery.
I told Kaya the hike was too easy for her if she didn't say she hated me yet, so she wrote this in the summit register. There were so many entries they went back only to 6/26, and I signed the register only my first time, 6/20, so we couldn't read it.
Posing at the summit monument.
It shows the major mountains you can see, and with clear skies we had great views. Again Longs is in the distance.
Bear Peak on the left and South Bolder Peak on the right. I climbed both of these with Green as part of a 17 mile loop earlier. I offered to continue to them but Kaya declined.
We went down Bear Canyon instead, and eventually got sight of civilization again. This is NCAR.
Great rock formations on the way down.
Kaya almost looks seriously tired here. Fortunately for the first time ever I didn't take a wrong turn on the Mesa Trail this time.
Beautiful wildflowers and views.
We thought we saw some people climbing on the rocks to the right, so I zoomed in.
Sure enough, there they are.
Heading down the Mesa Trail.
Red Rocks and Mount Sanitas, where we hiked yesterday.
At the Chautauqua Ranger Station. Kaya is mad at me since I hit her on the head with my hat.
A recreation of the incident with Kaya's revenge.
See, they're still happy.
Flatirons 1 to 5 (right to left) from Chautauqua. There were many big groups of high school age or so kids going up around this time, for some reason.
The playground behind Flatirons Elementary School, with Red Rocks and Mount Sanitas visible in the background.
A wonderful loop hike. 11.4 miles with 3500 feet of climbing, taking 6:32.
July 24 was the highlight hike--up Grays Peak, possibly also Torreys. We got up at 3:30am and got to the trailhead around 5:30. Since it was a Saturday the primary parking was already full and the secondary nearly full. It would be a very busy day on the trail. Here's a picture of the couple at the trailhead; it's 5:40 so with poor light the picture is blurry.
At the bridge at the start. Wow, they look so happy. Who would guess what misery would await them.
The rising sun hits Grays, left, and Torreys, right. I'd already climbed both peaks on the 13th.
Grays in early morning light.
Heading up the early section of the trail. The big worry about this hike was altitude sickness, something I'm very familiar with. Kaya's highest point was probably Mount Baldy (10,068 feet) with me years ago, and she seemed to have no altitude problems then so I thought she might be fine. Abe's high point was the second highest mountain in Taiwan, Xueshan (12,749 feet), so since Grays is 14,270 this would easily beat their previous high points.
Kaya was having altitude problems from the trailhead, which at 11,255 feet was already higher than she had ever been before. Unfortunately her altitude sickness would only get worse as she went up. It was similar to the problems I've had, so I could empathize.
Higher up.
At a switchback. The summit of Greys is in the distance to the left. There were hundreds and hundreds of people climbing this day, and the weather was fantastic, the best I've encountered on a 14er.
Kaya seems to be suffering.
The lighting was excellent and I got some nice pictures.
The ridge to Torreys. It was clear we were not going to do this one as well. Indeed I was worried Kaya might not make it up Grays.
Heading up Grays with Torreys in the background.
Nearing the summit.
Plenty of company on the climb.
Very close now--the final switchbacks.
The crowded summit.
Scenery on the other side of the continental divide.
Longs Peak in the distance.
On the summit at last. Kaya made it, in 3:15, but started feeling even worse on the summit. Abe and I only had mild headaches. Weather was incredibly mild on the summit--just a very light breeze and temperatures warm enough to wear shorts and a tee shirt, although I put on my fleece and then took it off when descending.
We only stayed for a few minutes, enough to take some pictures and for Abe to sign the summit register (which was just some random pieces of paper).
One more summit shot.
A big group of University of Florida alumni climbed this day and brought some flags for the summit. I was wearing my UCLA cap, and actually ran into some other UCLA alumni as well.
The crowds on the summit ridge as we head down.
Awesome scenery as always.
Torreys Peak was also popular this day.
Longs in the distance.
On the descent, with Grays in the background.
Abe carried Kaya's pack on his front at times.
Heading down the final stretch.
At the bridge.
They made it! Total time was 5:57.
Our route. 7.4 miles with 3100 feet climbing.
