Next up, big surprise, another FKT adventure! As you may have heard, I keep an eye on the Fastest Known Time website for possibilities as we travel. John is always up for coming along in some fashion. And occasionally I rope other people into the endeavor. Like Art and Robyn! They all liked the idea of circling Mount Yale as a co-ed team and aiming for an FKT in the process.
The initial writeup and photos:
Plus a few more pictures and notes...
Robyn gets the "lead in" image with this look of apprehension!
She claims she wasn't actually trying to put her hoody on backwards, and I'm pretty sure there were some giggles involved:
Art and John getting ready, likely wondering what the heck was going on at the other end of the vehicles:
OK, now maybe we've got our act together:
Art's photo of us heading down the road to get through this section during the quiet time of the morning:
Some of the only "traffic" we encountered - good morning deer!
Soon we were on the trail and climbing toward our first pass. Most of the people in that area were likely climbing Mount Yale, but we had other ideas for the day.
Love this log bridge:
It wasn't a normal clear Colorado morning and we basically climbed right up into a cloud. Neat experience, although Robyn was less-than-excited to be here. We met a fellow hiker, stopped for a quick break + jacket-donning, and then started up toward the main pass.
During the few minutes of rain, there wasn't much to see beyond the tundra below our feet and the grey cloud all around us. Soon we were down off the pass and happy to be moving lower in elevation (despite what my facial expression conveys):
A quick look back at the saddle, including some late-season snow patches:
Art took a nice picture of the valley and pretty lake below us:
Take that, cookie!
Camera dueling with Art:
Aspens, yay!
Popping out at a trailhead on the other side of Mount Yale:
And trekking down the road to our next trail:
Robyn seems to be in better spirits, or at least pretending so:
"Are you going to start hiking or just take pictures all day?"
Apparently the latter, because I stopped to document the sign-in box for some reason:
Who's spending time on something other than climbing the hill now? Thank you John and Robyn for clearing branches off the trail!
Enough procrastinating, let's climb this bad boy... I believe this expression is steepness-related and not weather-created:
Phew, time for a little breather:
As we look at the mountain we were circumnavigating:
One last push to the top of the second (and final) pass:
It's all downhill from here:
Moving with alacrity because we saw a dark cloud to the south and heard thunder, but at least we were almost down the hill by then:
We didn't get wet (at least not a second time) and I think we all felt a sense of accomplishment from the big effort:
Thank you all for an excellent day setting a Colorado FKT together!
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