short but sweet

we were planning on really rocking out our long 4th weekend...  bag some hills and come back exhausted.  here's how it went....

wednesday night:  drive to lake city (about 5.5 hrs...traffic dependent).  so glad we waited for dallas to get off of work.  we only had 6 fun-enders (motor homes)

dallas taking a pic of our new friend, andy

to pass.  a record for sure.  after 4 wheeling the last 2 miles, we arrive at wetterhorn's trailhead (11,200ft) at 11p.  up and hiking by 5:30. 

we had a great morning for wetterhorn

part of the class 3 climb right before summiting

go dallas!

we are back down by 10:00 and decide to head into town with our new friend for an ice cream cone.  we have fallen in love with lake city.  it's full of genuine people and so much to do!

wetterhorn

 

4th of july celebration at Lake City.  talk about a slice of Americana.   we were the only ones NOT wearing an America color.  we are watching the family fun races in the middle of town.  i missed my age bracket but would have totally done this.  definitely worth going back for.

we head up to trailhead #2 for the next mountain.  the off-road portion of this is 4 miles of 4 wheel stuff.  about 2.3 miles up we hear this PTWOOOOOOOOO.  super.  nothing like getting a punctured tire heading up a 4wheel drive trail.  we improvised a flat spot and changed it.  rather nervewracking.... as at one point in time the jacked up jeep was starting to slide toward the hill down to the stream. 

uncompadre (14,309)

we decide to hang out again at 11,000+ ft and car camp.  (our commander is super comfy for this).  since today was calling for a high chance of showers we were wanting to leave by 4:30, but it was raining and we didn't head out till 6.  we took a chance to basically run up and run down and get this over with.  2 hrs later we are at the top FREEZING.  it was 30-somthing degrees and blowing at the top.  we make it down 90 min later and am driving back down, praying that our wheels don't pop again.  we're a bit fresh out of spares at this point.

freezing at the top.

only 30 min from the top!

summit portrait

the drive back down the 4wheel drive trail

dallas checking out the cool honeycomb rock

on the nice dirt (not 4-wheel requiring) road, we hear a rather odd, scraping sound.  so for the 2nd time we take off our front left tire to release the rock that somehow got lodged in there.  we're going to invest in a better jack.

no, not a repeat pic.  this is #2 time we had to do this.  

we decide that we've had enough and instead of bagging one more tomorrow, we'll head home.  (the weather for the rest of the weekend wasn't looking super either). 

so we still have 2 days to play!  yeah!