Northern Colorado

So we spent over 10 days dry camping (no electricity and no hookups for water or dumping) at Buffalo Pass before moving on to Buena Vista for restock. Then we went up to Turquoise Lake just west of Leadville. Elevation over 10,000 feet. We stayed there for 5 days but had considerable rain which limited hiking. From there we went to Kremmling for a plug in night and then on up to one of our past spots ... Dumont Lake which is about 15 miles east of Steamboat Springs. Dumont Lake is on the Continental Divide Trail and is also at about 9500 feet.

This is Turquoise Lake, beautiful and tranquil. You can see Leadville off in the distance. Kind of chilly at 10,000 feet with temps in the 60's for highs and lows in the high 30's. Quite a change from the 100+ temperatures we are hearing about back in Texas!

We only got in a couple of hikes, this was down by the lake, about 6 miles in and out, a couple of waterfalls, no other hikers, and no rain on this one. Just about perfect!

On another day we got an early start and hiked to Timberline Lake. We thought we were acclimated to the altitude but the uphill portions of the trail said we were dreaming!

Timberline Lake ... Colorado picture postcard time. The trail runs up about 800 feet elevation gain over 4 miles, lots of meadows and some stream crossings.

Our picnic spot ... there were a number of people fishing and, from what we saw, catching a lot of fish (all catch and release at this lake). We just made it back before the rain. We wanted to do Hagerman and some trails up there but the rain washed us out ... next time.

So then we made it up to Dumont Lake and found the wildflowers still in bloom. This is fireweed, fairly common up in Canada and Alaska, maybe we just hit it right but we don't remember this much from our previous trips.

This is from a hike above Dumont Lake. Showy Fleabane Daisy (still looks like Aster to me) and Mountain Sunflowers ... they were almost solid everywhere.

And this is Dumont Lake, from the Colorado Trail which runs by the campground and generally follows the Continental Divide through the state. This is just before going back into the forest as we went up to a ridge line, but there were not any good views from the top.

Small lakes above Dumont Lake, the color in the photo doesn't do this justice. Also, where are the moose? We never saw any.

In the campground, here we sit all by ourselves. The camp host at this place was a real character ... around 55 or 60, a total loner, lived in a cabin in Alaska for 15 years in the wilds, and lived in tent in the campground. Lot's of stories around the campfire (and laughs too).

We went over to the Colorado State Forest area one day to hike a trail and got totally rained out ... the jeep was trashed. We also checked out some campgrounds, we'll be back some time for the hike but not the camping.

This is a trail we did a couple of years ago before my knee replacement and it wasn't a good experience. We did not make it to the top and I thought I'd never get back down. The formation is called Rabbit Ears.

The Rabbit Ears up close and personal ... not too impressive but the views were totally great. This hike is about 6 miles in and out and about 900 feet in elevation gain, the last part is a real "puffer".

So I'm sending this out late because after heading north toward Montana, we ran into some connectivity issues, we had phone, but no data. So no uploads. We'll be camped in the Pioneer Mountains inn Montana (Dillon, MT area) for a few days but will upload to the server when we get service on August 16th.