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Day 5: Sat Jul 26, 1997
Went to church in the morning, Bob had the sermon. This was the English section of the Spanish church, everyone was very friendly.
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| Bob Miller, Sharleen Sterner, and Valerie Miller at Berthoud pass. Looking up the east side of the pass. |
After lunch we drove west on I-70 to Rt 40 and went to Berthoud Pass. This pass has an elevation of 11,315 feet. Or maybe 11,307 or 11,314. All three values are given on the signs at the top. There are ski lifts up both sides of the pass, but they are not in operation at this time.
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| Valerie, Bob, Sharleen, and Brad. |
We hiked up the west side of the pass. At the top of the first level Brad Beaton caught up with us. He said he was on a business trip and was driving to Utah.
We continued on up to some very large snow patches and on up to a local peak. The scenery was spectacular, the Indian Peaks were visible to the north, mountains with snow patches were visible off into the distance. The weather was cloudy, threatening rain, and the breeze was cool when we got up a bit from the pass. I pulled out my earmuffs and did ok even though I was the only one in shorts. The lower sections of the trail passed through green pines with bright green ground cover and lots of wild flowers. Some of the distant peaks were sunlit. Our hike took about 2:40, we didn't rush. This was our first hike on this trip and we wanted to check how we did at an altitude typical of the Mt. Whitney hike. None of us had any altitude problems but we didn't spend a long time up there. Hopefully we can get used to it enough to avoid some of the problems on the Whitney hike.
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| Scene above Berthoud Pass |
Here is a view we had while hiking. Click on the image for a big view.
An even bigger view is also available.
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| Valerie and Bob on Berthoud Pass hike |
A view of surrounding mountains from near the top of our hike.
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| Snow field |
This snow field appears to be etching into the ground. I don't know what the mechanism is, but it is probably interesting. Perhaps if a certain geologist reads this he could send an explanation with his sig file at the end. I'll add it here if and when such comes in.
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| Snow field |
We did get to walk on some snow
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| More mountains |
Another view from our hike.
We went by Red Rocks Amphitheater on our return drive. It was too dark for pictures but the giant rocks and views of the distant Denver lights were very nice.
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