Peak 9 - 13,195'

My car was in the shop today so I had to turn my condo into a trailhead. I decided to climb Peak 9. This photo was taken from just outside my condo. It ended up being a tougher hike than I anticipated. Certainly tougher than any of the fourteeners I have done so far. I started at about 8 in the morning. I hiked up through the Breckenridge ski resort which is mostly snow free at this point. I saw several people skiing near the top of peak 9. After an hour and a half of hiking I got to the point where they had parked their cars near the top of the Mercury chairlift. I guess the road up the mountain is clear now. It took me another 2 hours to reach the summit. It was a tough hike to get to the top. When I got there about 11:30 the weather was starting to get bad. An hour ago the sky was nearly clear of clouds, but now it looked like rain was imminent. I scrapped my plans to traverse the ridge over to peak 8 and peak 7 and headed down. I glissaded down a slope where people had been skiing earlier and then donned snowshoes to walk down back towards the resort boundaries. I headed towards the windows chutes within the ski resort. I knew there was a trail that went through the woods there that I figured would be easy to find. There turned out to be lots of snow in places and the trail was difficult to follow. I postholed a bunch hiking back to the top of the E-chair. My feet were soaked. I made it back onto the main trails of the ski resort and made my way home. On the way down I checked out some of the mountain bike trails which now are clear of snow and are well marked. They looked like fun. It was a long tiring hike. but good to knock off another peak in the Tenmile Range.