Left Dillon and headed towards Denver. On our way we took a small detour through Central City/Blackhawk. At the Casino, Shyane was drooling over a Sheryl Crow look alike while I was winning beer money for the Todd show. I walked away with an extra $320. We only stayed in Blackhawk for about 1 1/2 hours. We then hopped over to our hotel in Lakewood to prepare for a big night with Todd.

At about 4PM we Headed to Red Rocks for the Big Head Todd show. We meet some really cool folks before the show, drank few Lone Stars then enjoyed the greatness that is Big Head Todd. While backstage we got the opportunity to hang out with the great Hazel Miller (who I gave a little kiss too). When returning to our seats toward the end of the show, I almost got my ass kicked by a 5 drunk punks while Shayne was off getting my beer. When he returned and I informed him of the situation, he turned, looked at the 5 guys that had completely surrounded me, gave an evil laugh and loudly said "ahhh...we can take em". They quickly dispersed! After the show we hung out in the parking lot, drank a few more beer and enjoyed the company of some more really cool locals.

We woke up early with the intentions of trying Quandry again. A quick peak out the window gave us our answer...... not today!

Another Thunderstorm sitting right on top of the peak. We waited a couple of hours to see if the storm would clear, but nothing doing. The weather looked clear off to the east, so we decided to we would have some breakfast and give Evans-Bierstadt a try. By the time we arrived at the zoo that is Mount Evans, the storms appeared to be following us. We did have a couple of hour of good weather and managed to get in some good hiking and bouldering.

Back to Dillon.

Left Salida for DIllon. We attempted to climb Quandry Peak but once again the weather got the best of us. We broke the ridge then noticed the massive storms that's seemed to coming at us form every direction. When we got back to the car, the peak was getting slammed. Another good decision.

Time for some pizza and beer!

Spent the night in Salida, hung out out the Triple M and listened while "Detriot Louie" told us his life story.

Shayne and I arrived at the American Basin trailhead at approx. 4pm. We were contemplating whether or not we should wait until the morning or go for it. The late start would mean that part of the decent would be in the dark, but given our luck with 14ers earlier in the week and the brevity of the climb, we decided give it a shot.

We started at Approx 4:45pm, following the Jeep trail just below Handies summit. The trail is a class 1 until you reach 12,600ft. It than turns to the east on a fairly, well defined class 2 route to the summit. The Roach book again is a little off. We started up the "old" trail and about 3/4ers of the way up, saw a sign stating that the trail was closed due to erosion. Don't know if someone had moved the sign on purpose just to confuse the hell out of everyone or if it was just bad placement by the CFI. Either way, by that time we were to far into the climb and decided to carry on to the ridge.

Once we reached the Handies South ridge we could clearly see the new trail behind us. It seemed to be slightly longer but not quite as steep (Still a class2). At this point the sky began to make some noise and a little sleet began to fall. 25 minutes later were on the summit. As we wandered over to Point 13,577, the clouds cleared just enough for us notice that we had walked right over Handies summit and were headed toward Whitecross Mountain. The clearing of the clouds was brief and as we where heading back to the summit, the sky's closed up. On the summit rested for about five minutes and looked for the summit log, but couldn't find it and with the storms getting worse we decided head back down. We received rain, hail and sleet during the entire decent. The New trail was in great shape and was easy enough to navigate with a flashlight. We arrived back to the truck, soaking wet, at about 8:45pm.

Even with the weather it was an enjoyable climb, short but enjoyable.

-blanca

Attempted Hermosa Peak. Three hours into the Drive, to the Trail Head, the rain started and a huge tree fell across the road, Blocking our path and sending us back to Dolores.

07/21/02 - 09:00
Rest Day! Its what we do best!