Colorado, Summer 2007

Just like last summer, we got to spend a month in Colorado over the summer. I worked on my dissertation proposal, and Nancy worked on filing for her Colorado teacher certification, but we got to spend evenings and weekends with friends and family. This album contains pictures from our trip to climb Emma Burr. For miscellaneous pictures, go here, and for our trip to climb Handies, go here.

We drove up to Buena Vista, CO, and then headed west to Cottonwood Pass. Long before the pass, we turned south on county road 344 towards Cottonwood Lake. We continued past the lake, up to Mineral Basin. The first day, we set up camp at about 10500 feet and then climbed up to Ptarmigan Lake near Jones Mountain. Right after we finished cooking dinner, it started raining, and it kept raining until 3am. That was when we learned that our tent wasn't very waterproof. I spent the night with soaking wet feet, and most of my clothes for the next day were wet, too. The next morning, we drove up to the end of the road and climbed Emma Burr. It was cloudy all day and it drizzled a little bit on the end of our hike, but the views were still spectacular. Emma Burr sits right on the continental divide (and has some distinction of being the highest named peak on the divide between two other places on the divide). Most people think of the divide as the highest ridge in the mountains, but there are very few high peaks right on the divide. From the top of Emma Burr, there are 14ers visible to both the east and west. Emma Burr is 13,538 feet, which is pretty respectable, though.

Click on any picture to view the Picasa web album where you can download the full size image.

Route to Ptarmigan Lake
Our first day, we walked up a jeep trail and then followed a footpath over a pass to Ptarmigan Lake. Only about 1400 feet of climbing, but a pretty walk.

This was a view looking eastward over Grassy Gulch. On the horizon, there's a triple high point. The middle one is the farthest away, and that's Mount Princeton at 14,197 feet.

A nice variety of wild flowers along the jeep trail.

Nancy and Sadie resting part way up to Ptarmigan Lake, with Mount Princeton in the background.

Nancy and me part way up to Ptarmigan Lake.

Nancy and Sadie looking out over Ptarmigan Lake. That's Mount Yale in the background (14,196 feet).

Nancy took this nice portrait of me near the pass to Ptarmigan Lake.

Nancy on the way back down. The light here was awful: Nancy was in dark shadow and the sun was finally coming out in the background. With some creative processing, however, she's visible.

map of the Emma Burr hike
On the second day, we drove up to the end of the jeep trail near Emma Burr and climbed the peak. We took a round-about way back: the route up Emma Burr was steep and we didn't want to descend the same way we came up. So we walked down the south ridge of Emma Burr and then into Morgan gulch a little, and back up an over into Mineral Basin. There was active work on a trail. The trail went up to the saddle between Emma Burr and an unnamed peak to its east. And then stopped. We saw some marker flags going into Morgan Gulch, though, so I'm guessing they're extending it. The trail was quite a feat. They were grinding rocks, cutting into hillsides, and building retaining walls. It seemed discontinuous with how few people there were. Our best guess was that they're re-routing the continental divide trail, which currently follows a jeep trail on the other side (the faint green line connecting Mount Kreutzer and Emma Burr Mountain is the continental divide). So anyway, we followed this trail towards Mount Kreutzer. There were lots of trail-building tools, but no one currently working on the trail; my guess is that they were leaving for the weekend just before we were arriving. After it was clear that the trail wasn't going to go back to the road any time soon, we bushwhacked through the trees and back down to the road, and then climbed back to the jeep.

This picture was taken after our hike. On the way up, there were no good views of the peak. The blue sky you see here was the only blue sky we saw all day, and it lasted about 20 minutes.

This is Nancy cresting the last rise to the summit of Emma Burr. I think this is probably the best picture from the trip. Except for the 20 minutes of sunshine late in the hike, these low clouds were with us all day. This picture is looking eastward. Mineral Basin is on the left, and Morgan Gulch is on the right. The saddle where our figure-8 hike crossed itself is the low point behind Nancy.

Here's the view from the northwest side of Emma Burr. In the foreground, you can see the ghost town of Tincup. The next clearing above that is Taylor Park with Park Cone rising above it. On the left are the mountains around Crested Butte, and on the right are the mountains around Marble and Crystal (all in the Elks).

For our descent, we followed the south ridge of Emma Burr along the Continental Divide. Clouds started rising out of the valley to our right, and it was really eerie (but it just can't be captured by a camera). It reminded me of the mists coming in in Scotland.