Bald Mountain is about 30 miles east of Kamas, Utah, on Route 150.
I THINK This Was The Route...
...although I don't remember that many switchbacks.
The trailhead is at the parking lot in the lower right; then up through the switchbacks, and a (well-deserved)
long easy meander along that ridgetop until the final summit approach. From 10,700 to 11,947, without benefit
of oxygen - no rest areas, no cell phone coverage. "As primitive as can be." :)
We're ready to go - loaded up and full of vim and vigor.
Silas, pointing out the way - "UP!"
The first half-mile or so is the secondmost difficult part of the hike, because it's steep - and because one's body
doesn't believe you're DOING this to it. "What? You want me to go UP? To where there's even LESS oxygen?" So
the body has to be coaxed along through the first few switchback.
After the switchbacks comes that long ridgeline - it's a forgiving terrain. This was during sunset, and the light
was brick-red. Silas was my rock! "Are you okay, Daddy? Look at that - the summit's not that much father."
This is the last pic I have from the climb, because (as you can see) it was getting dark quick. But fortunately
the long stair-like boulders above this ridge, in the approach to the summit, were better lit by the post-sunset
sky, or we'd have fallen to our doom (okay, we had flashlights, but the point is we didn't need 'em :)
Silas slept better than I did - my sore throat kept me up a lot. And sleeping on top of a 12,000 foot stack of
granite boulders is NOT "Sealy Posturepedic". Since we couldn't put stakes down into the granite, we
brought granite inside the tent, to hold it down from the inside in case of high wiinds. Wasn't a problem.
We looked down at the folks camped in their high-falutin', cable-TV and propane stove Winnebagos and
said to each other, "Hah. They think they're way up in the mountains, don't they?" Yup, we're insufferable. :)
Maia the Mountain Malamutt was quite happy chasing pikas - it was hard to keep her inside the tent at night.
But I wasn't about to let her roam around the summit, because that first step can be a DOOOzy.
In all honesty - if they'd just bring me food and water and meetings, I think I could stay on top of Bald
Mountain for a long time.
A very long time.
I believe that these are some of the lakes that you go by if you take the Lofty Lakes loop trail. But there
are a lot of lakes up here, so it's hard to tell.
Time to head back down. I think we're gonna be late for church - but it's so hard to stop walking around
and looking at things!
If Silas' grandmothers ever see this web site, I'll probably be in a lot of trouble. Here he is Snuffy-Smithing
his way down the top ridgeline from the summit, whereupon we saw...
Cool, huh? We'd seen these goats the night before, but couldn't get pictures of them. Two adults and a
lamb; as far as I know, a family unit, but I'm not too good at distinguishing mountain goat gender roles.
I just wish I had me a mountain goat to ride up Pikes Peak - these folks don't have any trouble getting
around up here at all.
Here they are scampering across the slope below us. Right after this pic, they started a rockslide that
lasted, oh, I dunno - forty-five seconds? A minute? A LONG time. It really helps put into perspective the
probably cause of all these talus fields - mountain goats.
I do know I'll never forget coming across these guys, way up on the top of the world.
These short, short firs are called "krumholtz" - this is what you get when trees try to grow above treeline.
We'd already been through several strands above this elevation, where the krumholtz is only inches or a
few feet high. Si said that the needles are hard and sharp. That's pretty much de rigeur for anything that
can stay alive up here - it's got to be hard, and it's got to be sharp.
This is from the ridgetop, looking back up the ridgeline towards the summit. I'm feeling very fine indeed :)
Here's the edge of the ridgeline, where we're just about to go back down the switchbacks; it's sheltered
from a lot of the wind, and so the krumholtz gets its tallest here.
And here is Si, about to descend the last few switchbacks back to the truck. We're late for church - very
late for church, indeed - but it's been a wonderful morning. Now it's bedtime :)