In July 2011, we did a three-day, two-night backpack trip in the Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado. We hiked in on Cunningham Gulch Trail to the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and out the Highland Mary Lakes Trail. John was 58 and I was 57.
Our goal was to begin becoming acclimated to altitude in preparation for backpacking the John Muir Trail (JMT) in California. So, we went to Colorado and planned to do three backpack trips. This was the second.
We headed up the Cunningham Gulch Trail. We had some new gear to test. We both needed to carry a bear canister on the JMT and had purchased larger and sturdier packs to accommodate them.
The weather was great! It was a treat to set up camp in sunshine. There are often afternoon thunderstorms in the Colorado mountains.
On the second day, we did a day hike from camp farther along the CDT for several miles. We had great views of the Grenadier Range.
The trail took us across this broad meadow.
We thought the rock and water provided a lovely contrast to the blue sky …
… and we enjoyed seeing these unusual tufts of green.
But a highlight of this trip was the wildflowers.
Later in the afternoon, clouds began moving in over the mountains.
We headed back to our camp and just managed to get there before a hard rain started. We were camped just above 12,000 feet, and we both were still having some altitude-related issues, primarily headaches and loss of appetite.
We woke up to clear skies the next morning …
… and went on another hike, where we encountered more wildflowers. Sometime after these photos were posted on Flickr, Backpacker magazine reached out to us. They wanted to use this image …
… in the May/June 2019 issue.
We hiked out on the Highland Mary Lakes Trail and enjoyed the views along the way.
As much as we enjoy seeing meadows and wildflowers, our first love will always be mountains.
Even though we were still experiencing altitude-related issues, we achieved our goal of working toward acclimatizing to altitude in preparation for backpacking the JMT.
All photos from this trip are on Flickr.
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