Adventure Tykes

Last week we returned from an awesome trip to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. The mountains are filled with alpine lakes, an abundance of wildlife, snowfields, spider webs of 4-wheel drive roads, waterfalls, ghost towns, mountain biking, hiking, backpacking trails, beautiful wildflowers and numerous 14,000ft mountains.

View of the San Juan mountains 

Marmot!

While planning the trip we scheduled a hike to summit one of the 14,000ft mountains and we did exactly that. Bedge and I have summited other 14,000ft mountains but we wanted J-Man to do his first. We chose Handies, which neither of us had done before. It is one of the “easier” 14,000ft summits. None of them are “easy” per se, but this one was an easier one at 14,048ft.

There are two different approaches to the summit. You can hike out of American Basin or Grizzly Gulch. Grizzly Gulch is the longest of the two approaches. With J-man in tow we chose to hike out of American Basin – 5.5 miles round trip with 2,500ft of elevation gain. We camped in American Basin the night before and started our trek at 8am the next morning.

The night before our summit in American Basin

Sunset

Bedge wanted to carry J-Man on this hike and so be it. With that kinda of elevation gain I didn’t argue. We chose to not let J-man do any portion of the hike on the way up. Thunderstorms are prevalent in the afternoons in the San Juans and the last thing you want is to be caught in lightening and thunder above tree line, on a summit with no shelter. We wanted to get to the summit as quickly as our legs would climb and  if there was time on the way down J-Man would be able to do a bit of hiking on his own.

The hike to the summit was spectacular. There was a myriad of wildflowers – indian paintbrush, columbines, old man of the mountain, marsh marigolds, parry primrose and so much more. You pass Sloan’s Lake a little over a mile into the hike. The lake is filled with glacial silt making it a beautiful turquoise blue.

So beautiful!

View of Sloan Lake from the trail

We crossed a few snow fields, a creek crossing, heard a couple pikas squeaking at us and spoke to dozen or so hikers that were in awe that we were bringing J-Man to the summit. It blows my mind that people are so unfamiliar with ‘babies’ on the trail.

Snowfield crossing

Creek crossing early on in the hike

We reached the summit and holy cow was it packed. There was a huge group of high school students from Texas and a bunch of smaller groups and families. It was so great to see everyone enjoying the outdoors and the beautiful day.

J-man was a rockstar when he arrived. People started asking to take our picture, wanted to know his age, if it was his first 14er and wanted to make sure he ‘signed in’ (there’s a log on the summits to sign that you were there). It was fun and a warm welcoming.

We had our lunch on the summit and then headed down. The sky was still clear, the sun was out and no threatening clouds were visible, so we let J-Man lead the way down.

Having lunch at 14,048ft!

J-Man on the summit

We did it!

30 minutes in to our decent the clouds started rolling in and getting darker. It’s amazing how quickly they arrive and become threatening. We secured J-Man in the pack and continued our way down.

Pretty steep section of the trail on the way down

Amazing view!

It took us about 5 hrs to do the hike with lunch on the summit, rest breaks, and photo stops.

What an accomplishment for us!

We can’t wait to take J-man on his next 14er. We haven’t decided which one it will be.

Maybe… Torrey’s, Gray’s or Bierstadt.

Have you had any adventures or accomplishments with your tykes this summer? Do you have plans to accomplish a hike, ride, climb or any other outdoor activity with your tykes?