Today we went on a fun hike. It was steeper than we were expecting, and the heat was a little higher than expected as well, but we all survived (and Appa has CRASHED).

Stats:
Time: 2:49:47
Distance: 3.75mi (round trip)
Total Ascent: 1,925
Max Gradient: 31.2%

Google Earth view:


Elevation Profile:


The pay off / lunch time view.


I'll get more photos up later.

Sooo cool!

Can't wait to see more pics! What time did u head out this morning? We hiked to!

Oh, we were late going, I volunteered with a food drive this morning so we left our house around 10:45am. Luckily the trail head is only about 20-30 minutes from our house.

Dang, that IS late. Definitely need some more pics. Looks like fall has a firm grip on the Rockies this week!

There will be more photos to follow, but see those mountains in the far distance of my photo? I'm heading up those now for a campfire dinner... From one side of the valley to the other! I simply couldn't wait to share this amazing photo. You just can't appreciate it scaled down, so give it a click and enjoy the full shabang. In this photo North is on the left, and south is on the right. Not a complete 180º photo, but fairly close.



We were up this canyon Tuesday night and there were only a handful of pockets of turned leaves. Today? Half of the east facing canyon walls had turned. It was fantastic.

Ok, as promised. More photos. I'll start out with another panoramic shot. This time it's south to north (left to right). Technically you could stitch the two panoramics together and get an almost full 360º view, but it doesn't quite work out, which is a bummer. Same as the other panoramic, give it a click for a full bigger view.



Now on to the other photos! Here we are at the trail head getting ready to go. So exciting Appa can't hold still.


This is what 1/3rd of the trail looked like. Lots of rocks. Steep. However, a different 1/3rd of it was nice and shady in the woods. Perfect dirt floors. Sadly I don't have any pictures of those areas. We were too busy soaking up the shade to think to grab the camera.


As I mentioned earlier, it was hotter than we anticipated (crazy warm front came in), so we made sure to keep the pup very hydrated.


He was very happy (and not the best behaved today. He kept trying to run ahead or off the trail to smell/eat something).


Here we are overlooking the valley(s). Turns out Appa likes a good view. He would just stare and stare and stare.


On our way down. We were slipping all over the place on the loose rocks, but it was well worth it.


This was actually our 2nd attempt to this summit this week. I found it on summit post, but nowhere was listed the distance so we thought we'd just go for it after work. It got too dark for our liking on the way up tuesday night so we turned around. I'm super glad we went back to finish it in the day, the views were great.

great shots! looks gorgeous!

I love the pic of the back of you two watching the view. That would make a great framed photo!

what kind of camera do you have? does great panoramics

Those panoramics are actually about 7 photos stitched together. The camera is just a canon digital SLR.

I love the pic of yall two looking over the valley! beautifull!

did you use a tripod? great job on stitching them. my phone just has an option to do panorama "assist" and automatically stitches them for you. most of the time it does horrible but i've gotten a couple of good shots from it. an 8mp phone camera is still just a phone camera and has issues with picture quality even though it has more megapixels than my camera i recently lost had..

No tripod, just my legs. I used photoshop to stitch them. The size and quality of the sensor, and quality of the glass make the biggest difference anymore. Mega-pixels are kind of a superfluous indicator these days (unless you plan on printing larger format).

Great pics and Appa is adorable as usual! Looks like you guys had an awesome time! How big is Appa now?

Just weighed him today. 66lbs.