You can see so many great pics of the X-Games – here is my poor effort at showing what it looks like from the crowd view at the bottom of the 22 foot superpipe. Skier on left.
I just had to post this! While showing property recently we were just stunned by the beauty of our surroundings and both I and the Buyer jumped out of my car to take pictures!!!! For Market information please click on the appropriate tabs at the top 🙂
The fall colours are stunning so the trails are calling! I love to hike Snowmass Lake trail in the fall. I borrowed some orange attire from my neighbour (rifle season) and decorated my dog with orange tape then headed for the trailhead. This trailhead is snuggled up next to the Snowmass ski area – the view of the snow-covered runs above the fall trees was really surreal. Beautiful colours with lots of reds this year all highlighted by the new snow.
A family of three deer were super close to the trail on my return. I guess they know it is elk hunting season! They looked like one baby deer with a female and male adult. The buck watched me carefully while his charges walked away. It took me about ten minutes or so to get from my home in Basalt to the trailhead – we are so lucky to live here 🙂
I have wanted to do this hike for a long time but wasn’t exactly sure of how to get to the trail! Seven Castles lies about 5 miles up the Frying Pan river from Basalt (which is about 18 miles from Aspen). It is so named because of the cliff formations in the area which may be seen from the Frying Pan road. This hike was my third attempt this summer as the Wilderness Society were sponsoring hikes and they knew how to get there! The first two times I tried the hike was fully booked and then cancelled due to flash flooding risk so I was very excited to finally go! It is amazing how different the countryside is back here – sort of like Utah – with narrow canyons (mountain lion country) leading to beautiful waterfalls. We were even fortunate enough to see a flock of bighorn sheep who crossed the trail ahead of us. They posed for photos but mine did not turn out well enough to put up here!
Fall arrived seemingly overnight and brought an early snow to our valley. We went for a drive from Aspen over Independence Pass through the beautiful town of Twin Lakes to Leadville. On the way we passed the trailhead for La Plata reminding me that yet another summer has gone by without me hiking La Plata (my intended first fourteener)…
There are some great things to do in Leadville including visiting the Mining Museum, but this trip we contented ourselves with wandering through a very cool rock and fossil store, a fascinating antiques emporium, and having a beer in a historic and quirky Irish Pub!
Then we returned to our beloved Roaring Fork Valley via Minturn with awesome views of snowy mountain ranges and fall colours en route 🙂
Time for our annual Crested Butte hike! Friends were hiking from Aspen to Crested Butte so we drove over on Saturday to meet them with plans to hike back on Sunday. This is definitely the luxury way to do it! You can bring whatever you want as there are cars to take it back so you don’t have to pack everything for hiking and the overnight stay into your hiking backpack. This is the way I plan to do it every year now 🙂 Also, it made hiking with my dog (on her fifth birthday) much easier as there was no need to make a pet friendly shuttle request. And how could I have left her behind on her birthday???
I must have been quite tired from the Friday Capitol lake hike followed by America at Belly Up as it took the longest ever to hike (more like a leisurely walk) for a total of 7 hours from Schofield Park to Maroon Bells trailhead by the lake… That is a whole hour longer than usual (for us) and it was fortunate that my friend took her Spot GPS as her husband was able to track us to avoid any concern over our tardiness! There were still lots of pretty wildflowers and also tons of very interesting mushrooms.
After my Capitol Lake hike America was playing that night at Belly Up. Belly Up is expensive but is so small a venue; when one of your favourite bands is playing it is well worth the money! I literally set my beer down on the stage to dance and was the luckiest girl there when Dewey Bunnell leaned over and gave me his pick at the end. I took it to my guitar class on Monday as a “show and tell”. My friends who jam and have a band are thrilled to put the playlist in their band room. What a night. Thank you America 🙂
A beautiful day beckoned me to Capitol Lake. This trailhead is a 40 minute drive from where I live near Basalt. Maybe an hour from Aspen. I was a bit surprised to find the last three miles or so in much worse condition than last year. All the storms have made rather large ruts and exposed some big rocks. My Jeep Liberty Sport made it and I was very glad that I own this car!!! The way down was even scarier but in 4-Lo I got down safely! The hike was spectacular. I went out and back via the Ditch Trail as I was saving energy for a Crested Butte hike on Sunday. The hike itself took about 6 hours total as I took lots of pictures on the way to the lake. A storm was coming in so returning to the trailhead only took me 2.5 hours – a whole hour faster than the trip out 🙂 Capitol Peak is on my blog header and is one of my most favourite mountains in this area. I think the sheer rock face from peak to lake is about 2600 vertical feet. Very impressive.
So lucky on this Lake Powell trip to have beautiful weather for most of the week and also an amazingly violent storm complete with hailstones that lasted about 40 minutes and produced the most incredible waterfalls off the canyon walls. When it felt safe we went out in the ski boat and saw one actually starting. We watched it form and then eventually hit the water really close to us. It was still going as we came back up Iceberg canyon! One in the main channel near Slickrock was so big and gushed straight off the top looking just like a huge horse’s tail. We drove behind it and were just in awe of how much water was pouring off the cliff. I have included some photos with houseboats in them for scale.
One of the most amazing things about Aspen is the legendary performers that come to the Belly Up. I was fortunate to see Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo this last Saturday night. What an incredible experience. The club is so small; I was only two or three people away from the stage. It is truly awesome to see your rock heroes up close like that.
Aspen Country 