Montgomery Pass
We tried to go camping this weekend but were thwarted twice. Both Katie and I had a 3-day weekend with the 4th of July on a Monday this year so it was a great opportunity to get out and camp. Trying to take advantage of the 3-day weekend, we booked a small yurt outside of Georgetown to do some glamping. We haven't done too much hiking in the I-70 corridor, so we thought this would be a good home base to get out and explore the area. This would have been our first time going glamping, but due to too many guests prior to our arrival lighting illegal campfires, the fire marshal shut down their Airbnb operation a week before our stay.
We got a refund for the Airbnb and started planning where we would go camp instead. We really wanted to camp in that same area, but since we live in Fort Collins, it would take us longer to get to that area than people coming from Denver, and we didn't want to risk getting to that area and having no place to camp, particularly since it was a holiday weekend. So we planned on going the opposite direction and looked in Routt National Park on the Wyoming side. This was still a 3-hour drive but isn't very close to any major cities. We made our plans and started getting excited when Thor (one of our 3 cats) started getting sick...
Thor finally started feeling better on Saturday morning, but because of everything going on with him, we decided to just stay in town so we could keep an eye out to make sure his recovery continued. He finally started acting like a normal cat again by Monday, but his condition wasn't worth risking being out of cell reception camping all weekend and the pet sitter needing to contact us.
With our camping plans canceled, again, we knew we still needed to get out of the house to hike at least once. Monday was looking to be the best day for hiking from a weather perspective, so we waited all weekend before getting out into nature to enjoy the last bit of our 3 day weekend. We picked Montgomery Pass because we wanted to get away from other people to try and stay in the camping spirit. We drove 2 hours up to Cameron's Pass and started our hike from the Zimmerman Lake Parking lot. The hike started out a little strange. Everything was wet and damp. Colorado hiking, no matter where you are, is usually pretty dry, but this area of the mountains get a lot of afternoon thunderstorms and a lot of snowmelt. Now that it's July, things in the foothills are starting to die and turn brown, but on the Montgomery Pass trail, everything was so green. So green that it felt like we were hiking on the East Coast again with all the moisture.
After hiking through the dense wet forest, there was a little opening that gave us a preview of the views that we were going to see at the summit. That preview was a stunning opening in the trees, although the view was incredibly misleading. Once we hiked another quarter-mile and got above the tree line we were treated to gorgeous rolling mountain peaks covered in grass and millions of wildflowers. There were so many flowers that we struggled to take steps without trampling on them. The trail split with trails going in both directions to the tops of nearby peaks, down their saddles, to other peaks, down the saddles, and so on for as far as we could see. We choose to go to the South because the first mountain from the split in that direction was taller and less distance. As we climbed up the views kept getting better and better until we found a nice spot to sit and eat our lunch. Considering the trail was exposed, the wind wasn't too terrible, and we ate our lunch just off the top of the last peak that we visited.
We hiked back down and started unpacking when someone else in the parking lot started screaming about a moose. This got our attention and sure enough, despite this guy yelling at the top of his lungs about them, there was a small herd of moose just inside the trees from the parking lot. There were five in total, just eating the greenery and ignoring all the humans. We spent a little bit of time watching them but kept our distance.
We will definitely be coming back to this area to do more hiking, and might even try this same hike but try and make it to more of the mountain peaks. Even without visiting more peaks, this was a challenging hike being around 1,400 feet of elevation gain in just 5 miles. So we might need to get into better shape if we want to visit some of the other peaks next time. Even though it was challenging, it only took us 3 hours to complete.
5.1 mi
3 hrs
11,243 ft
1,381 ft
Flowing
The beginning of the hike started by following a small scream that feed into the Joe Wright Reservoir.
Orange Jelly Fungus
This small fungus was growing on all the decaying trees in the area.
Burned
This area was right around the start of the Cameron Peak fire. We were only a couple of miles from Cameron's Peak itself, but there were only a few spots of scorched trees in this area.
Burned
We hiked though a burn area from the Cameron's Peak fire. There were spots that were completely scorched but most of the area was not burned.
Cup Fungus
The cup fungus (Geopyxis carbonaria) is commonly found around burned areas, and this is exactly where we found it. There were thousands of these little cups on the ground around the ashes from the Cameron Peak wild fire.
Globeflower
Around the burned area on the hike there were a ton of the Globeflower wildflowers.
Jacob's Ladder
Since the area was so wet, wildflowers were growing everywhere along the hike.
Tease of a View
We came to an opening along the hike that gave us this fantastic view. This tease was nothing in comparison to the views that we got at the top.
Up and Over
The sign marks Montgomery Pass at the bottom of the saddle between two peaks.
Dark Clouds
The weather was foretasted to rain in the afternoon after we were planning on being down from the mountain. But because of the tall peaks in this area, there was weather all around us. Luckily it didn't rain on us.
Faded
The sign that marked Montgomery Pass was in need of repair.
Embossed
The paint protected the wood as the sign weathered, creating embossed text where the paint sat.
Old-Man-of-the-Mountain
At first I thought this was some kind of sunflower, but sunflowers are much taller and have leaves on the stems. It took me a while to identify this flower as a Hymenoxys grandiflora, or commonly known as Old-Man-of-the-Mountain.
Steep
The first summit was this steep to get up to it, and it went straight up it. It's always difficult to capture the steepness of the trail, but this photo in combination with the elevation profile is enough to prove that this wasn't an easy ascent.
Clark Peak
The peak right in the center of the panorama is Clark Peak. To the left is the area where Jewel Lake is, an alpine lake we visited camping last year.
Three Mountains
We made our way onto the first peak in this photo, but someday we'll try to make it to the third peak, North Diamond Peak. Ironically, it's the furthest South peak in this photo.
Nokhu Crags
IN the distance from the farthest peak we summited you could see the Nokhu Crags (right of center), unmistakable by the jagged features. The sun washed them out pretty bad, but we still knew what they were from hiking around them last year.
Joe Wright Reservoir
From the summit, we could see Joe Wright Reservoir. We could also see Zimmerman Lake, but that was harder to see (and almost not visible in this panorama).
Selfit at the Top
I set my camera on a pile of rocks and we took a few selfies. At one point, the wind kicked up and blew my camera off the rock pile. That was the first of two times that my camera fell to the ground on this hike, luckily no damage was done to my camera or lenses.
Moose
We found a herd of moose near the parking lot. I didn't have my telephoto lens with me, but my 50mm managed to get some shots zoomed in enough. This is now the second time hiking that we have come across a moose and I didn't have a telephoto lens. I guess I need to start bringing it now that the animals are out.
Staring Me Down
I was probably a little too close to this moose. The whole time I was just wanting him to stop eating and look up at me, and the moment he did it was a little bit scary with how close I was.
