Anyone who spends most of their time playing in the mountains knows the old adage: The harder the climb, the better the view. Of course there are less grueling choices for when hearts overrule Type One minds. But for me, well, they just don't feel quite as satisfying.
Bobbie and I have already hiked Bridge Of Heaven more times than we have fingers. But an invite from Jen came knock, knock, knocking on our text message box, and here we go again...on a smokey sky day, no less. Drought + Wind = Wildfires out West (sigh).
Jen wanted to do Bridge Of Heaven from the Dexter Creek side, and come back down to Ouray via Horse Thief. Hmmm, don't care for Horse Thief all that much. It's hot, loose, rocky, and has a zillion boring switchbacks. So we said, "Hell...we'll think about it."
We planned to meet at the trailhead at oh-730 am. It's a rough, slow, rocky road to get there, thus it called for us to leave before 0700...which called for us to be out of bed at 0530 (insert whine here). But two cups of strong coffee and a fine poop later, I'm raring to go :)
The morning was crispy cool, but the air was scented with smoke from distant fires. Haze hung in our little box canyon valley like a bad mood. But hey, sometimes diffused light makes for good photos. Off we go, Jen, Bobbie, and Your's Truly. Sit back and relax and I'll take you along...
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| Hiking The "Bridge Of Heaven." |
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| Lunch |
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| Jen and her 8 year old gal, "Sunday" |
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| What a view...it shrinks us down to size. |
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| Time to head down...Bobbie's way out front. |
Hope you enjoyed yesterday's 10ish mile hike to Bridge Of Heaven...and back down to town via Horse Thief Trail. Since we left our car up at the Dexter Creek approach for "Bridge," we needed to go fetch it this morning. Instead of taking Petroleous Rex, I told Bobbie I'd just ride my bike up to get the car. Whew. It took an hour and a half and was, for the most part, an uphill, low-gear grind...on tired legs.
Time to find another mountain to climb...
Peace Out,
mark and bobbie
Sure doesn't look smoky from your gorgeous photos. You've had some great hiking weather so far this summer.
ReplyDeleteThe 13th and 30th photos are super gorgeous! love 'em! And I did sit back and relax and enjoy your hike, thank you for taking us all along :)
ReplyDeleteI was totally lost looking at those views, nothing , no mountain peaks looked at all familiar, thought you were pulling some kind of gag on all of us. Im sure you got your exercise for the day but it didn't do it this time for me.
ReplyDeleteAl & I had to do a photo shoot for a friend who is making a book about his dogs over 40 years time and he wanted a shot of a dog driving a truck so we headed out to the coast this am and on returning home we discovered a very small pull out which they had just paved, so we stop and what a surprise, probably one of the most unusual coast scenes in the area, so that made our day, almost felt like the world was suddenly all healed and normal once more.
But of course that soon wore off. :(
I will send you a shot of what we viewed.
D & A
I'll try to do better...
DeleteI love the Bridge of Heaven. So beautiful, such a brutal climb. Thanks for the photo tour. Last year I hiked up Old Horse Thief and down Dexter Creek. It was a nice loop, but the road walk back to town was longer than I expected.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad we won't be back in Ouray this summer for the Ouray 100. Perhaps we'll plan an August visit all the same, as long as things are looking okay for local travel. No one can deny you have a lovely home.