A nice view of Peak 3, Tenmile Peak and Peak 1 from the Colorado Trail (left to right).

On the summit of Peak 3 (12,676') with Tenmile Peak (aka Peak 2) (12,933') behind me. I decided that it was not a good idea to attempt the technical ridge to Tenmile Peak by myself. The weather was excellent all day today. There was never any threat of thunderstorms.

At the top of Peak 6 (12,573') with Mt. of the Holy Cross (14,005') over my left shoulder.

Peak 6, Peak 5, Peak 4 and Peak 3

One of my goals for the time that I am living in Breckenridge is to climb all of the numbered peaks in the Tenmile Range (Peaks 1-10). So far I have climbed 7,8 and 9. Today I tackled 6,5,4 and 3. I started my hike near the base of Peak 8 of the ski resort and started hiking up on cross country ski trails. There is no real trail to the top of Peak 6, so I followed old logging roads as high as possible and then bushwhacked through the trees and snow until I reached treeline. It was a simple climb up a ridge to reach the top of Peak 6. Peak 6,5 and 4 are connected by a gentle ridge with not much elevation gain between the three. Part of that hike follows the Colorado Trail as it crosses the Tenmile Range. This area is not heavily traveled at all. I was the very first person to sign the summit register in 2005 on Peak 5,4 and 3. One of the registers went back to 1997 and had only been signed by a few dozen people. Pretty amazing considering how close these peaks are to Breck, Frisco and Copper. I descended a snowfield off of Peak 3 and began hiking out to the highway. I hadn't paid much attention to the map when planning the hike and was shocked to discover that I had nearly 6 miles of hiking to go until I reached the road. It was a long way out with one nasty hill with about 3 miles to go. I ran out of food and water, but reached the road about 10 hours after I had set out in the morning. I caught the bus back to my condo, thoroughly exhausted. The hike was about 14 miles which is probably one of the longer hikes I have ever done in a single day. It was fun though. It is cool hiking peaks that are so close to civilization, yet few bother to attempt them.

Mountain Biking

Today I went on my first real mountain bike ride of the season. I discovered that even with all of the skiing and hiking I don't have the endurance to bike at 10,000 feet. I started from my condo and rode up Peak 9 into the Breckenridge ski resort. There is a dirt road which goes up the mountain. I got about 2.5 miles up before I headed down on some singletrack trails. A ski resort isn't very good for cross country mountain biking because the trails are either up or down, there aren't really any flat parts. The way down was fun. There are some nice trails on the mountain. It was a pretty short ride, but a good taste of what is available around here. I can't wait until the chairlifts open again so uphill biking is no longer required :-)

On the summit of Peak 9 with ominous weather building. It did end up raining a bit on the way down, but no thunderstorms until much later in the afternoon. The contrast of the sky in this picture with the one below taken 3-4 hours earlier is amazing. Yet, this is typical of Colorado summer weather.

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.

The route up Grays and Torreys

Me on the summit of Grays Peak. You can tell by my attire how nice of a day it was. Not windy or cold at all.

Grays Peak (14,270') and Torreys Peak (14,267')

Today I climbed these two fourteeners located on the continental divide South of Loveland Pass. The usual route up the mountain starts on the East side of the peaks at the Steven's Gulch trailhead. I arrived at the parking lot at 6:45am and there were already 6 cars in the parking lot. I ended up seeing 15-20 people on the trail. I started up the trail and after about 15 minutes I realized that I had left my sunglasses in the car. I turned around and headed back to get them. After starting the hike for the second time I made great time. I headed for Torreys first and made it to the top in 2.5 hours. There was a ton of snow on the trail above 12,500'. I think most of it had fallen in the last few days. It made the going a bit tough, but there was a group of people breaking tracks in front of me which was nice. It took me about 45 minutes to descend to the saddle and climb Grey's Peak. There were a ton of other people climbing the peaks today. Many of them were skiing down as well. There was actually a bit powder near the saddle. I descended down the Grays Peak trail and then tried playing with my new ice axe a bit for the first time by glissading down some slopes where there was a safe runout. I practiced self-arrest and other techniques while sliding down the snow. I took my time on the way down as it was a beautiful day and there was no hurry to get off the mountain. On the way down I passed several groups who were just heading up at around 1pm. This picture was taken in the afternoon when there was still not a cloud in the sky (Grays left, Torreys right).

You call yourself a Volvo dealer?

I drove down to Denver on Sunday to drop my Dad off at the Airport. I spent the night at my cousin's house because I needed to get my car serviced in Denver on Monday. Monday morning I drove to Richenbaugh Volvo to get the service performed. I went to the Volvo dealer because the 140k service is a higher-level service and I figured that the mechanic in Breckenridge would have a hard time doing everything properly. I also knew that the radiator fan on my car had stopped working several months ago and needed to be fixed. I assumed that by going to the dealership I would be able to get everything fixed at once. I was wrong. The Volvo dealer didn't have the parts in stock to fix the radiator fan! It would take 3 days to get that parts. I had told them that the radiator fan was broken when I schedules the appointment over a week ago. The whole point of going to the dealer was to get everything fixed at once. Oh well, I guess I'll just have the mechanic in Breck order the parts and get it fixed later.