On the west side of the Mendenhall River (the opposite side from the visitor center where the buses take the tourists) there is a trail that goes to the Mendenhall Glacier. It is considered the country's most accessible glacier. A three mile hike on the West Glacier Trail, then the Ice Caves Trail will get you to its edge. Along the sides of the glacier there are ice caves big enough that you can walk in. The GPS track of this hike. The trail starts on the left. On the way out I hiked up the Mendenhall Lake Edge Trail which is an unofficial trail with lots of flowers.  Flowers on the Lake Edge A Bird Along the Trail This trail runs splits off from and rejoins the West Glacier Trail; it is mainly a walk along the edge of the lake. When the lake level is up, this trail is underwater. After rejoining the West Glacier Trail, I took a right turn onto an "Unmaintained Hazardous" trail, which is a rough trail marked with cairns that leads to the side of the glacier....

I haven't posted any 14er hikes this year, so here's one. Three of us hiked up Mt. Yale, about 10 miles west of Buena Vista, Colorado, in early-mid October. It is one of the collegiate peaks in the Sawatch Range. At 14,196 it is the 21st highest mountain in Colorado. Colorado did not get much rain this summer, but in October the skies started to open up. The mountains had a nice dusting of snow making for some nice views when we were there. We started at the Denny Creek Trailhead and went up the Southwest Slopes - the standard route. The trail roughly follows Denny Creek until the one turn we had to make. There the trail got a little bit steeper. The further in we went, the steeper the trail got. Near treeline we started going though the snow. It never got more than a few inches deep. A GPS track of the route helped out where we couldn't see were the trail went. There is a reroute on the trail starting just below tree line, but with the snow it was hard to follow and we end...

The Crater Lakes are in the James Peak Wilderness, southwest of Boulder. The closest trailhead is at the East Portal of Moffat Tunnel (usually called just East Portal). This area usually has a good snowpack in the winter. The main trail through this area, South Boulder Creek trail, is usually packed down. The lakes we went to are off the main trail. The hike up to the lakes and back to the main trail was probably some of the roughest snowshoeing I have ever done. We started going up the South Boulder Creek Trail. In some sections the packed trail does not follow the actual trail, including where the turn for Crater Lakes was. Once we realized we had passed the Crater Lakes Trail, we followed some ski tracks going towards the lakes. There was no broken trail to the lakes. It was hard going through some snowdrifts and we followed tracks when we saw them. We ended up at the two middle lakes first. Crater Lake #2 South Blown Snow Crust on Crater #2 South I walked out on the lake and...

Chasm Lake sits at the base of the face of Longs Peak and is one of the most scenic lakes in the park. The lake is at 11,800 ft (just above treeline) and Longs Peak at 14,255 towers above it. We started from the Longs Peak trailhead on the east side of the park. The trail starts out climbing through a pine forest. Once it crosses the treeline the views get amazing. This first picture is of Longs Peak with Mt. Lady Washington just in front of it on the right side. Once crossing over the ridge coming off Mt. Lady Washington, we could see Columbine Falls which comes from Chasm Lake. Also one of the less common routes up Longs Peak via The Loft is visible, but covered in snow. It goes almost straight up to the lowest point left of the peak. The trail crosses the creek above the falls, but first we had to cross two snowfields. This picture is looking back on the snowfields after we crossed them. The lake itself was still mostly frozen. Near its east shore, where the trail ends, the...

Weather can change fast in the mountains. This day, I was snowboarding at Keystone. In the morning the skies were blue and the snow conditions were not good. The snow was hard packed. This first picture is of the North Peak from the top of the front mountain. Looking down a trail at the base area. After lunch, we came outside and it was snowing hard. The sky had turned gray and the visibility had dropped. The skies began to open up and white gold came down. The snow kept coming down harder though the afternoon. By the time we left there was about 3 inches of snow of the ground. I could still feel the hard packed snow underneath, but it was getting better. They received 11 inches of snow that day...unfortunately we had to leave early. Keystone closes at 8:00pm and there were not many people there that day, so the snowboarding would have just kept getting better until the last lift stopped.