Quandry

Quandry was the first fourteener of autumn, since summer was two days past when I hiked up the east slopes. This is the best time of year to do fourteeners -- the thunderstorms of summer have died away and we haven't yet gotten significant snow at altitude. Also, it's cooled down just a bit; on sunny summer days, it can be pretty hot for hiking, even above 12k feet. Autumn's just the nicest time of year to be in Colorado.

So, it wasn't surprising that the weather was perfect. The sun was blocked once for a very brief time by a trivial little cloud, but that was it. Crystal blue skies dominated. In fact, they were a little too crystal blue -- I did a sloppy job with the sunscreen, and I got a few minor spot burns here and there (and there's my bottom lip, which just plain got nuked -- that was the first time that's happened to me). We were out there about eight hours, starting a little late at 9:30 or so -- but we knew there wasn't going to be any weather, so we didn't really need to hurry.

Of course, the mountain was harder than it should have been -- not terribly hard, but hard enough for me to notice that it had been six weeks or so since I'd climbed anything higher than a two flights of stairs. Still, despite all that, I did okay on the ascent, and my knee seemed to be holding up better than it had all summer, at least until I got half-way back down and realized that this mountain couldn't have been any more ideal for destroying my knee.

See, the whole damn mountain above treeline is rocks. Not solid rock, but loose boulders and talus (a bleeding nightmare on a slope for shaky knees). Eventually, the stress of trying not to slide on those finally strained my knee to the "breaking" point, and with the trail leaning the "wrong" way, I couldn't easily take the stress off the left leg until almost back to the car (unless I walked backwards or something. Hah). So, it hurt like hell by the time I made it out. It recovered nicely (though my other leg was really, really sore from compensating), but I still needed to do lighter stuff to strengthen it. I'm just so damned stubborn.

Anyway, afterwards we did the usual (for me, anyway) run to the Backcountry Brewery in Frisco, where I had three delicious Peak One Porters (mmmm. Best beer made in America).

(Here are more pictures taken by Don during the trip.)

Me, near the base

Don and Joan, hiking along

The Blue Lakes

Quandry is made of rocks

From the top of Quandry: Bross, Lincoln, Cameron, Democrat

Joan and Don, on the summit

The survey marker

Me, on the summit

Me, next to the survey marker