Nancy and Sadie when we stopped for lunch. That's Potosi Peak in the background.
Nancy and Sadie when we stopped for lunch. That's Potosi Peak in the background.
This is the view back towards Yankee Boy Basin as we climbed up and out towards Blue Lake Pass.
Here's Blue Lake Pass as viewed the second day from partway up Sneffels. The pass is the low spot on the reddish ridge on the right. You can make out part of the trail swtichbacking up to it. On the far side is the Mount Sneffels Wilderness Area and the Blue Lakes, which are very pretty (see a later picture). The peak in the left center is Gilpin Peak, 13,694 feet.
Sadie's favorite part of the trip was the walk up to the pass. She liked the grassy areas, and at the top, she got to play with two other puppies: a great dane and a Newfoundlander.
Some dramatic views as we descended from the pass.
More dramatic views, a little further down the descent.
The second day, we climbed this mountain, Mount Sneffels. This is the peak as viewed from near Ridgeway. The picture was taken as we drove up the first day, but we did our ascent on the second day after camping near Ouray. We climbed what would be the back side in this picture.
This is the side of Mount Sneffels we climbed. The first part of the ascent follows the col of loose boulders and scree. It's called Lavender Col, named after a famous mountaineer in the area. After reaching the saddle, we turned left up a narrow couloir, followed that up a ways, then climbed out of it and around to the peak. To give you an idea of scale, there's a person standing on the peak wearing bright blue, but they're so small, you can't see them at all in this shot.
This is the view back down Lavender Col from most of the way up to the saddle. On the right, you can see Blue Lake Pass a ways below and Gilpin Peak straight across.
This is the view down the couloir. At the bottom, you can see the saddle at the top of Lavender Col.
The three of us at the summit. Sadie had a hard time in a few places and we had to lift her up some high ledges, but she made it all the way up. This is the view to the south. In the lower left hand corner is Blue Lakes Pass. The peak on the far right is Dallas Peak. On the left edge of the picture, you can see part of the Telluride Ski Resort.
This is us on the summit again, this time with the view to the north. The peak on the horizon a little to the right of my head is Uncompahgre Peak, which we climbed two years earlier.
These are the beautiful Blue Lakes as viewed from the summit, looking south towards Dallas Peak.
Here's Nancy and Sadie looking back the way we came. You can see the saddle with Lavender Col going down to the right. Following the Ridge away from the saddle, the peaks are Kismet, Cirque, Teakettle, Coffeepot, and Potosi.
Coming back down Lavender Col, Sadie really didn't like slipping on the scree.
Because we camped so far away, we started our ascent a little late and didn't start down until 1:00. Big mistake. Bad weather came out of nowhere fast, bringing lightning and hail. When we got down within half a mile of the jeep, we saw lightning strike the bottom of the basin below us, a couple miles away. Very scary. It started pouring rain when we were 100 feet from the jeep, and right after we got in, there were four flashes of lightning with no break betwen the flash and the thunder, followed by hail. The skies poured a lot of water on us, which made the jeep ride down interesting, with flowing water following the track in many places. At one point, we started sliding sideways, and there was nothing I could do short of gunning the engine which would have rocketed us off the track, so we just slid down a slope until we stopped. Exciting and fun, but kind of scary, too.