This weekend I went on an overnight backpacking trip to Ice Lakes Basin, in the San Juans of Colorado, along with fellow photographer Aleks Kozakowski and about 200-300 other hikers. I’ve never seen so many people in the San Juans! I guess this is the “go to” place around here now. Anyhow, no problem, the basin is big enough for everyone. The wildflowers were great, and the clouds kept rolling through offering nice lighting conditions most of the time.
I just “found” this photo from back in July 2006, when some friends and I hiked a circumnavigational route around Wetterhorn Peak, a 14er in the Uncompahgre Wilderness of the San Juans in southwest Colorado. For a portion of this day, smoke from a nearby forest fire filled the high alpine basin, obscuring the view of Wetterhorn in a blue haze.
Last week I went on a five day backpacking loop hike in a remote area of the Weminuche Wilderness. Some highlights of the trip: hiking up an unknown knife-ridge in the pre-dawn darkness, enduring a lightning storm from a dubious treeline campsite near Rock Lake, being frightened by a possible (probably not) bigfoot footprint in the mud, seeing a group of horse riders dressed in full retro Daniel-Boone-style gear with muskets, and generally getting used to the monkishness of solo backpacking again.
Happy 4th of July from Ouray, Colorado!
An awesome sunset and rainbow over Ridgway, Colorado last night.
Grant Dixon is a photographer from Tasmania who has trekked, climbed, skied, and photographed many of the great mountain ranges of the world. His online photo gallery is extensive, and relentlessly impressive. I asked Grant if he would answer some of my questions via email, and below are his answers. Enjoy, and be sure to put aside several hours at least for browsing his galleries!
You have experienced and photographed many of Earth’s great mountain ranges. Do you have any particular favorites, and if so, why?
Probably the Andes; not only is it the longest mountain range on Earth but its north-south orientation means it has a great diversity of geology and climate zones, and hence mountain form and environments. The Patagonian Andes are probably my favourite area – I could return there repeatedly.
The rather smaller Karakoram Range, often lumped with the Himalaya is another favourite. The mountains there are so steep & raw, and its been the scene of several memorable adventures, including a longitudinal ski traverse in 2004.
This morning Parker, Lily, and I went for a hike up into Weehawken Basin, out of Ouray, Colorado. It felt great to get up into the lush, green, forested mountains of the San Juans again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there may be bigger, taller, and more impressive mountains than in Colorado, but nowhere do I know of a paradise like here! In a couple weeks I’d imagine that this scene will be plump full of wildflowers.
Upon reaching the gorgeous Weehawken basin, we felt energized and ready for more hiking, so we decided to go ahead and climb a peak. We headed up the tundra grass towards Mt. Ridgway.
Lily scouts the view, with Potosi Peak (13,786 ft.) behind. By the way, that big couloir on Potosi is #1 on my snowboard descent wish list.
Lily stands on the summit of Mt. Ridgway (13,468 ft.)
There was a plethora of these purple wildflowers on the rocky summit.
It’s good to be back home finally.
Here are a couple interesting photos taken from the airplane window during my flight home to Colorado from Peru last week.
Crazy sunrise light in the western sky somewhere over Mexico (?). I have no idea what caused the upside-down shadow sunburst in the sky… any astronomers out there that can enlighten me? There were some clouds to east that may have caused some strange refractions… ?
Regimented clouds over Houston.
After our big Cordillera Huayhuash trek, followed by a rest day in Huaraz, four of us headed out into the Cordillera Blanca near Huaraz for a three day hike up the Quilcayhuanca valley, over a high pass, and down the Cojup valley. This time we would not have burros to carry our gear for us! Also unlike the Huayhuash trek, we would have some challenging weather this time.
It rained for the last several hours of our hike in towards Laguna Tullpacocha, and we got a bit off track from the “trail”. But we found a nice hidden campsite and managed to get a good bonfire going despite the wet wood. Once the clouds cleared that evening, the glaciated peaks surrounding us shone in the bright moonlight, and we slept under the stars that night (along with a local cow who had been trying to enjoy our campfire with us).
The next day we had to hike over a ~5100m (16,732 ft.) pass. Turns out that this is much harder to do without burros carrying half your stuff. But Erik was still stylin in his city jeans, with Nevado Pucaranra behind (6156m).
Claudia keeps going. In the background is (I believe) Nevado San Juan (5843m).
From the top of the pass, the view of the massive Nevado Ranrapalca (6162m, 20,217 ft.) was impressive. Notice how easy it is to see how the glaciers have recently receded.
Just as we got down off the pass and arrived in the Cojup valley, the clouds unleashed with pelting hail. We set up our camp and made dinner in the freezing cold. Nevado Palcaraju (6110m) shines in the moonlight during a break in the clouds. Notice the huge glacial moraines in the center of the valley below the glaciers.
After a lazy morning start, and a somewhat confused hike out the valley, we were eventually all back in Huaraz again that night to celebrate with fine Peruvian wine and food!
A few weeks ago I fulfilled one of my dreams – to trek around the remote and rugged Cordillera Huayhuash mountain range in Peru. In the city of Huaraz, the base for most of the expeditions in the Cordillera Blanca and Huayhuash, I signed on to a 10 day trek with burros to carry all our camping gear, an arriero (burro driver), a guide, and a cook for all our meals! Deluxe! Not only that, but our random assortment of people turned out to be a good group and we all had a great time together. Below are a bunch of snapshots from the trek, in chronological order.
You can also see my gallery of landscape photos from the Huayhuash here.
An arriero guides his burros over our first pass in the Cordillera Huayhash.
Our second camp, at Janca. Jirishanca towers behind.
Hiking a beautiful knife ridge with a spectacular view of Jirishanca.
Lots more photos below the fold… don’t miss it!
Continue reading “Cordillera Huayhuash Circuit”
