Muniac... that's a big rock.

Summer is definitely here, it was in the 90's all weekend. I soaked through 3 t-shirts working outside.

The pandemic certainly hasn't affected folks ability to buy and shoot fireworks. It sounded like Red Dawn Saturday night, booms non-stop for about 3 hours from all directions. My in-laws house is up on a hill and we sat there and watched the show for quite a while. Thankfully our new pup seems largely indifferent to the "scary sky noises".

That one followed an unusually tough winter which produced a lot of snow melt runoff. It was the largest of many that came down. We had a rock slide that came down on CR17 outside of Ouray which damaged the gas line coming into town. Figured it less loose in the worst possible spot. Our road crews here are pretty skilled at dealing with these incidents. Still snow in the mountains at 11k+ feet but melting fast now. Some north facing patches will remain up there year around. This winter much tamer than last which set history records. We did our last ski run on July 3rd 2019 closing out that winter. Some of that old snow is still in Red Creek near the snow shed on 550.


Waterhole Slide on Camp Bird Rd. (Winter 2018-2019 Photo courtesy of Ouray Road and Bridge.)


Million Dollar Hwy (4/19/2011 Photo courtesy J & L Sockwell.) Caused by heavy rains.

Many of the mountains out here are the younger parts of the Rocky Mountain Complex. As such faces are very steep with unstable rocks. Causes a lot of headaches, deaths and accidents for the foolish among us.

We get rock slides in the winter as well. The usual pattern is a front comes through with rain turning to snow. Lots of rain to saturate the ground followed immediately by freezing temps. That's our recipe for rock slides. Though the rocks usually aren't quite that big.

Most of the rock in the mountains here is sedimentary (layers). It's also razor sharp.


Scrambling Stony Peak @ 12k feet elevation.

The photo above gives a pretty good idea of the mountain terrain. Whoever came up with the name Rocky Mountains was a genius. Chunks of rock can be pulled out by hand. Nothing up there is stable and climbers get killed with rock falls. The cracks between rocks collect water, it freezes, expands and breaks chunks loose. Some can be quite large when you look at the base of shear faces to see what broke loose. All those mountains are slowly decaying and eroding. Millions and millions of years from now perhaps those peaks will be flat. Won't be around for that. Right now I'm just trying to make it to year's end one day at a time.

PS: The previous photo (rock in road) in from the Ruby Wall. Always a trouble spot with rocks falling. Usually not nearly that large. You can see the pock marks all over the road in that section from rocks fallen. The plows are up there year around to keep things cleared. It's a Colorado state road (550) and they do a great job on maintenance.

A guy I work with has traveled out there several times to climb 14-ers, he's got some pretty neat pics. I'd love to visit some time, though at this rate I've no idea when that would be.

peejman - You're welcome to come visit us any time your schedule allows. I can promise we can show you some unique terrain. There are 53-57 mountains over 14k ranging from easy to extremely difficult. The difference in count depends on how you categorize them. Each year the Hardrock 100 foot race runs out here. Cancelled the last season and this season. Joe Grant has run in that race and we've spoken with him. Fairly deep fellow and I think he finished 3rd in the last race. Anyway he did a self propelled and self supported bike tour hiking up all the 14ers in 31 days. Pretty amazing level of endurance and commitment.

Jeannie and I did 2.5 miles above 12k feet yesterday which took us about 1 hour. It was 500' of vertical. Almost a joke compared to what the pros can do. And we drove up to the 12k staging area and hiked from there. Many alpine purists would call that cheating. We call it calibrating and scaling.


Bullion King Lake which we walked around.

Thanks for the offer, thats some amazing scenery. Ill definitely look you up if/when we get out there.

U R Welcome. I can say from taking many photos, they never do it justice. It is unique out here but terrain is rugged. That plus high elevation can be a problem for some. Even those in good shape. We had guests here a couple of seasons ago from NJ (300' elev). They actually did pretty well hiking around at 12k feet. Albeit slowly. My other MTB friend from NJ is young and in good shape. He was getting a bit dizzy and a headache from the elevation. We live at 7k feet and go up another 5k feet to hike and explore around. We're pretty used to the terrain. It takes time for your body to build new red blood cells needed to supply oxygen to muscles and organs. Some do better than others.

I've had a couple of bouts with dehydration and altitude sickness neither of which I'd care to repeat. Altitude problems were skiing the Klein Matterhorn and the other was biking Tin Cup Pass, CO. In both cases we were lucky to get down and out. Some really bad dehydration when riding in Torrey, UT promoted by ignorance with drinking fluids. You feel fine then BANG! the severe headache started at the base of my skull. Almost crippling pain too. Takes a few hours to drink the fluids back in. IV would be quick but who has that in the back country. Now we're educated and much more careful. No problems in years.

Now 87F in the shade @ 9% RHI (2:18p MDT).

9% RHI.... wow. I didn't realize it was that dry. There's no excuse for getting dehydrated here, you'll sweat like a horse. The humidity peaks at 95-99% first thing in the morning and drops to about 50% during the late afternoon. So when it's cooler in the mornings (70F) the humidity is suffocating, you can't get your morning paper without breaking a sweat. Then when its hot in the afternoon (90F) it's only half as suffocating... hooray for summer in the south!

Speaking of getting used to the altitude, we're at 6500 to 7000 feet in this Rim community. After nearly 8 years here we've long since grown accustomed to the thinner atmosphere. Yet we talk with people occasionally who've driven up from the Valley where 1000 +/- feet in altitude is roughly standard, and those who arrive here after years in the desert, who struggle with or have long sinse given up on personal fitness, don't do well at all.

If they drive east beyond McNary to higher elevations around 10,000 feet or better they come back complaining about the way they feel after walking short distances to sight see. Being terribly out of shape and plagued with breath robbing habits like smoking gets the best of them - things everyone should avoid at all costs.