Mount Schlee is never going to be at the top of anyone’s list but combined with Piper Pass and the small hill next to it on a beautiful summer day, it’s a respectable day trip that is worthy of anyone’s time and effort.
Mount Schlee is never going to be at the top of anyone’s list but combined with Piper Pass and the small hill next to it on a beautiful summer day, it’s a respectable day trip that is worthy of anyone’s time and effort.
This is a perfect family hike for a Sunday afternoon – just pick a day without too much of the infamous front range winds and you will enjoy it more than you expect.
The views from Mockingbird make it worth your time – they are 100x better than the “view” from Blue Hill. The hike on the approach road is rather “meh”, but with a family this is worth the nice drive.
I can’t really recommend Blue Hill Lookout as a premier hike but it’ll do in a pinch when you have 4-5 hours and want some fresh air with glimpses of mountains through sweet-smelling pine forest.
It’s been roughly 15 years (!!) since I tackled the main summit of Mount Baldy and 8 since tackling the west summit. I don’t like repeats if there’s other options but on this particular day in June 2019 I decided it had been long enough and it was time for some updated photos and some exercise.
Since we were camping in the area over the weekend of June 15, I decided I might as well drag my family up the diminutive Packenham Junior with it’s not-so-diminutive views. The rumors on this outlier of the much higher and more impressive Mount Packenham are true – it’s a steep grind with no trail and sweet views. We parked in the ditch along Hwy #40, just up from about 20 cars that were parked for the obviously MUCH more popular Grizzly Peak just to the north of our destination.
Mount Denny is no exception to the list of summits I’ve desired for many years already. I first heard of it around five years or so ago and since then it’s made it’s way into not only one guidebook, but two. Both Nugara and Kane list it as a ‘moderate’ scramble via its southwest face. When Liz and Mike announced they’d successfully scrambled it in early June, it bumped way up my list and Wietse and I planned an ascent for a nice looking Friday on June 8, 2018.
On Saturday, May 19, 2018, Wietse and I finally completed a nice front range hiking / scrambling loop that I’ve been eyeing up for several years. The loop starts with an pleasant hike / easy scramble up Porcupine Ridge before leading over moderate terrain to a few more summits west of Tiara Peak. From just north of Tiara’s summit the route ascends to Boundary Peak along an undulating Boundary Ridge before finishing off with a nice moderate scramble over Midday and Midnight Peaks.
After scrambling up and down Burstall Mountain in 3 hours on September 01 2009 I was sitting in my car driving back to my camp in Elkwood thinking, “now what do I do the rest of the day?!”. Since I had scrambled Brett and Pilot the day before I thought I would want a short and easy day but I strangely felt myself wondering if I could possibly still bag another peak since the rain clouds from the morning had dissipated and I was left with a warm and sunny afternoon.
For some reason, I’ve wanted to scramble Mount Hood for quite a while already. So when Wietse and Kelly were thinking of which scramble to do around the Kananaskis Lakes area I was quick to suggest that one and invite myself along.
After scrambling up Mount Norquay the night before, I found myself heading back to the mountains on Thursday, June 28 2007 with Kevin Papke.
Opal Ridge North is not a grand objective by any means. As a matter of fact, in my research to see how far up the ridge I should go to ‘officially’ nab the north summit I couldn’t find two accounts that gave the same idea of the summit.
Wow. Who would’ve thought that I’d be bagging my first scramble of the year only 6 days into it?! OK – it’s not like Grizzly Peak is such a hard or worthy adversary but for a winter scramble it does very nicely thank you.
I had decided on Friday afternoon that I would post something to the web board to see if anyone would be interested in joining me for an attempt at South Kidd the next day, Saturday November 19, 2005.
What a day! With the weather reports predicting a perfect scrambling day on Saturday, Sonny and I hooked up to do the north peak of Mount Kidd.
I was determined to bag a peak this weekend after three weekends of nothing. The problem was that there was a ton of snow in the hills so I knew that I would be climbing something that I’d done before.
