Fall Colors Hunt in Guanella Pass
It's a little early to start hunting for fall colors, but despite that, we found some great colors in the Aspens in the Guanella Pass area. We hiked the Abyss Lake trail about 3/4 of the way to the lake before turning around due to exhaustion. We never planned to make it all the way to the lake, and we made it over 2 miles further than we planned, but the views of the aspens where we turned around were worth it.
There are still many green aspens in this area on the mountainsides, but we hiked through several perfectly peak aspen groves. In about another week the mountainsides will be popping with color. I'm not sure where we'll end up next weekend looking for color but this is a good area.
This is the longest distance that Katie has done since before her accident. It was a little further than what she was ready for but we did it nonetheless.
8.29 mi
4.9 hrs
10,723 ft
1,303 ft
Coming Out of the Ground
Katie made a good observation that these mushrooms grow their caps and then push up out of the soil rather than shooting a stem up and then growing their caps out. Very interesting fungi...
Geneva Mountain
After hiking for several miles, we finally came to a valley that gave great views of Geneva mountain (the main mountain in the photo) as well as Mount Bierstadt (in the distance to the right).
Orange-Red
Since we were early, we got to see a lot of the reds and orange aspens which turn and die quickly before the yellows start popping out.
Orange Grove
It's usually hard to find orange or red trees, let alone finding an entire grove that shade. This was a nice treat that was just a little ways off the trail at a camping site.
Colorful Leaves
Trail Full of Aspens
We didn't see any aspen trees fro the first two miles of the hike. Then afterwards we were hiking through the aspens with breaks of deciduous trees between the groves.
High Sun
The sun was high in the sky when we were hiking but that didn't stop me from getting a sun flare photo through the aspen trees.
Eye of the Tree
Colorful Butterfly
This butterfly might not look colorful, but it's wings on the inside were vibrant. Too bad I got a photo of it when it's wings were closed.
Reflection in the Lake
I got in a precarious position to take this photo while blanching on an unsteady log on one foot while using my other foot to hold a branch out of the frame of the photo.
Hiking Though the Aspens
This was the first fully golden aspen grove that we got to hike through. The distance was worth the views. This is a great aspen grove for fall colors.
