Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Highpointing 2012, Part Three -- Staying Acclimated Between Elbert and Wheeler. Sept. 4-5, 2012

Please join us on October 3 in San Francisco for GirlVentures' EMPOWER! Breakfast!  Click here for details.

After descending Mt. Elbert, the girls and I felt we'd be ready to take on New Mexico's Wheeler Peak after a couple days of rest.

My main job between Elbert and Wheeler was to keep us acclimated.  I felt we had adjusted quite well to high altitude and I wanted us to stay that way.  My plan, therefore, was to keep us as high as possible between hikes.

Fortunately, the old mining town of Leadville, Colorado provided an easy way for us to "stay up."  The altitude in this town, the highest in the USA, is 10,200 feet.  We therefore spent most of the day after our Elbert hike (Sept. 4) hanging about Leadville.


Leadville's main street...



The girls and I spent a few hours at Leadville's National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum, which was a lot bigger than I'd expected and was quite an enjoyable way to spend the time...


Inside the museum...



Leadville had an ice palace once upon a time...pretty cool...




The museum had a lot of well-constructed and informative dioramas...


After the museum, we checked out the Silver Dollar, one of the original Wild West saloons.



Doc Holliday had been a Silver Dollar patron...


We turned the car south in the late afternoon and began driving toward New Mexico.  I had read about a campground at 10,800 feet in southern Colorado, and I was hoping to reach it before nightfall.

We took some remote roads and saw quite a few buffalo...


Unfortunately, we didn't get to the campground before sunset.  I paid for a site, but no one felt like putting up the tent after dark...especially after the caretaker said he'd recently seen a mountain lion on the grounds.  The girls therefore decided to sleep in the car.  Unfortunately, that arrangement didn't work for me...Alex and Sage snoozed while I tossed and turned.  Being tall has a few disadvantages...there was no way for me to stretch out my legs.  I gave up after a few hours and decided to drive to the border.  After making sure the girls were buckled in and in fairly safe sleeping positions, I drove the car out of the campground and toward Taos, New Mexico.

When the girls woke up, it was fifteen minutes before sunrise (Sept. 5) and we were just a few miles north of the border.  We ate pb&j sandwiches for breakfast, then drove to the "Welcome" sign to watch the sun come up.

The girls each standing with a foot in New Mexico and a foot in Colorado...


Being silly on the border...


Entering New Mexico early in the morning...


The beginning of Wheeler Peak's Williams Lake Trail is just above Taos Ski Valley (elevation 9200 feet), which was only an hour or so away from the "Welcome" sign above.  We drove over and up, then looked for a relatively inexpensive place to stay.  There are primitive campgrounds on the way up the mountain to the Valley, but the girls and I hoped to hike the next day (Sept. 6) and we always like to stay in a motel the night before a hike.

Taos Ski Valley...


Since it was the middle of the week and after Labor Day,we got a great deal on a room at Alpine Village Suites.


Alex earns her keep...


Painting Sage adored, right next to our room (Sage took this picture)...


Painting Alex liked (in our room).  Alex took this picture...


After we settled in, we drove up the road to the beginning of Williams Lake Trail (elevation 10,200) and played cards for the rest of the day.  I wanted us to stay as high as possible for as long as possible in order to stay acclimated.  This process seemed to work well, as the girls were fine during the next day's hike (though I huffed and puffed quite a bit).

Come back tomorrow for Highpointing 2012, Part Four -- "Highpoint: New Mexico.  Wheeler Peak, 13,161 feet.  September 6, 2012."

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