Backpacking and Such

Warning, this post may induce you to leave your day job/cozy retirement/ridiculously expensive university studies.

But you're going to keep reading anyway.

Enjoy.

I began this past summer touring Italy and participating in a study abroad in Berlin. It was a blast. It was my own "Grand Tour". I gained a lot of self confidence and appreciated the wealth of experience and knowledge. However, my heart really isn't in travel. Its not in cool clothes or listening to new music. As with most red-blooded Americans, I have a deep love for the West, for mountains, for getting dirty, and, to keep the list short, adventure.

Luckily for me I was headed to northern Colorado for a three-month internship.

When I got there my little heart was broken to realize that many of the famous Colorado 14ers would be impassible until August. (The 14ers are mountains that are over 14,000 feet in altitude.) I had to sate my appetite for hiking and adventure with mountain biking, hikes and runs around Devil's Backbone and Coyote Ridge (open recreation wilderness areas near town), and 200-mile relay over the Continental Divide from Colorado Springs to Crested Butte.

I suppose I had a little fun here and there...

But I was waiting for some serious hiking and backpacking. I decided that I couldn't sit around and do next to nothing at my summer job for another week and made plans to go backpacking with a friend - one of my best decisions ever.

Too much else happened for me to really do it justice here and keep your interest. Suffice it to say that I hiked nearly to the peak of a 14er on Monday, 15 August and then backpacked in Rocky Mountain National Park that Thursday through Saturday.

Long's Peak from the Boulderfield at 13,500 ft.

















Lost Lake Trail (valley) and Stormy Peaks (to the right).