On August 25, I hiked to the top of Mt. Princeton (14,197 ft.) It is my first 14er of the year (hopefully not the last), and the 14th overall. The trailhead I used is at an elevation of 8900 feet. Round trip for the lower trailhead is 13 miles. If I had I high-clearance vehicle, I could have driven 3.5 miles further up the road. I don’t have such a vehicle, so I walked it. I got to say, hiking all the way from the lower trailhead makes me feel like I really earned this 14er.
While driving to the lower trailhead in the wee hours of the morning, I noticed that it rained during the night. So there was lots of moisture in the air. As the morning went by, lots of clouds formed earlier than usual. It was a cool effect, but it pretty much killed the view from the top. The good thing about these clouds is that they were not the lightning producing kind. The clouds were also interesting for photography. I wish I had more time to take better photos, but I needed to focus on getting up and down the mountain while I still had some resemblance of energy. Anyway, I made it all the way up and back down again. So here are the pictures.
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Looking east shortly after sunrise. Above 11,000 ft |
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Clouds on top of Mt. Princeton's summit. |
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Looking east and seeing clouds creep up the Mountain |
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Looking back on the trail |
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Look, there is a Pika on that rock |
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Pika |
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From the ridge line, looking southeast |
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The trail to the top is in the clouds |
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From the top of Mt. Princeton. Mt Antero |
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View to the northwest from the top |
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Me on top of Mt. Princeton |
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On the way down, looking towards Salida |
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Mt Antero |
1 comment:
Another 14'er. Way to go. And cool pika on the rock. American college football started last night. I'm happy.
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