25 June 2013

Handcart Peak, Teller Mountain and Point 12,624

Extreme Hoof Skiing on Handcart

14 July 2007

We did it! We summited Handcart, Teller and two other mountains that probably go by numbers instead of names. Beautiful day. Lot of time spent way up high. We followed the ridge around the bowl, and we saw a ton of mountain goats. None up close, unfortunately. These guys don't see too many humans, and the ones they do see are either on machines making lots of noise or carrying machines that kill animals. So they were pretty darned nervous about us being up there.

That was the one annoying part of the day. Lots of four-wheelers. All but one seemed polite and friendly, but the noise began wearing on me.

For the first couple of hours, we had the place to ourselves. We had no trail to follow, so it was akin to what the pioneers may have experienced. Then all of a sudden the hills were crawling with motorcycles, jeeps and quads.

I skipped one of the summits on the ridge because I was tired. It may have been the tallest one. I wanted to do Whale Peak. But I was tired, and we weren't sure the weather was going to hold. We probably could have done it. But I don't mind that we have to go back again. Very pretty place, even with the noise.

We had tossed around a bunch of ideas for today and opted for Handcart Peak because it's close, we didn't think it would be too crowded, and it would be a new area for both of us. I thought it would be cool because Pioneer Day is coming up.

We had thought about Humboldt, Kit Carson, Mount Hope, the Keyhole on Longs, Sunshine, Wild Horse, Cirque, the knife edge on Torreys or riding up Mount Evans. Hopefully we will end up doing some or all of the above at some point this year. We're running out of summer weekends already, believe it or not.

Editor's 2013 Note: We went on to climb four 14ers in 2007, including Sunshine, but nothing else on this day's list made the calendar that year.

Alpine Sunflowers and a visitor on Handcart Peak

3 comments :

  1. Wow. where do you find the time? Such a list

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a pretty steep slope the goat is standing on ... must have amazing balance. Too bad about the noisy machinery - I don't quite know why people like to rumble around the great outdoors when they could go quietly on bike or foot and hear the birds and the wind instead....

    Sunshine is a lovely name for a mountain. Will there be photos of that in another post? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Been many a year since I was high up on a mountain and that was in the Cascades. Your post took me back to those fun times over twenty years ago.

    ReplyDelete


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