The day has finally arrived, with so anticipation; my campers arrive today. Our agenda includes a 4day backpacking trip into rocky mountain national park. I am so excited to be able to get into the backcountry and start the summer for reals. Our trip will take us to the base of Longs Peak, one of many 14,000ft summits in Colorado. There is still lots of snow in the area so we wont be able to summit the peak but we have some good hiking planned.

As a member of the trail department crew this past week I had my hands full from unloading 689 bails of hay, bleaching cabins, bathhouses, and the cafeteria, luggage transportation, building TeePee's, and even helping clean up a substainatil flood resulting from our dishwashing machine malfunctions. Nonetheless I was busy.

This weekend Chris, Tyler Hoos, and myself summited Byers Peak (12,804ft). We arrived at the trailhead on an overcasted Staurday morning and were not surprised to see nothing but snow. With no trail in sight we decided the best way to the summit was to make it straight up-hill to the ridge and follow the ridge line to Byers Peak. Starting at 10,300ft we hiked on 40 degree snow covered slopes until we broke treeline. Once above treeline the snow was more sparse and we were able to hike on solid ground. Overall the trip to the summit took us roughly 3 hours. Once we summited the peak we could see multiple rain stroms in the surrounding area, and they were headed our way. As we reached treeline again on our decent the rain began to fall. Once we found our footprints again, the fun began. Since we were hiking up 40 degree slopes on the way up, we got to take the same 40 degree slopes on the way down! Glacading is a term that describes using your rain gear or feet to essentially slide down the snowfields/glaciers. We glacaded from treeline to the trail head, completing the descent in roughly 40 minutes.

Happy Father's Day

Today is, the... Summer Solstice!
15 hours of sunlight