Tom Grundy's Quandary Peak Page

August 11, 2016 We drove to the trailhead for Quandary and semi-leveled the vehicles. There we were met by Nalumon's friend from high school - Carrie. This was to be her first 14er. We sat around in chairs in the parking lot for a while talking. We even saw a few Perseids although I was usually facing the wrong direction. We were also joined by James - who had been planning on Torreys and Grays but was deterred by the road so came here. That night I got up to see more Perseids and maybe get some photos, but I didn't have much luck (I saw one decent one in between exposures).

the milky way stretched across the sky above us - sadly not very many meteors

8-11 I delivered coffee at the traditional 5:30. The lot filled in and many people were ahead of us when we started around 6:30. We were not going for any speed records. It was a crisp morning and there was quite a bit of frost on top of my truck. In some ways it feels like I skipped summer this year, this was the first morning it sort of felt like the summer was coming to an end. James also joined us for the hike up. At first the trail went through the trees but soon they became more sparse and then we were above treeline and able to see how much farther we had to go - a long ways. I tried to keep a slow but steady pace going. We got to a low sub-peak before the final long steep slog up the ridge and Carrie decided that this would be "Carrie's Peak" and she would stay here and meet us on our way down. Of course we were having none of that and Nalumon kindly took almost all of her pack weight and stuck it in my pack and convinced her to go on. That helped. We continued our plodding way up past some mountain goats and little kids (sometimes they passed us) on up to the summit around 11:30. By now most people were heading back down so although there were still a lot there it wasn't as crowded as it probably had been. I shudder to think of how crowded this peak is on the weekends. We had plenty of time to admire the views, eat, do a bit of acro, and take photos.

we passed lots of squeeky pika on the way up

we are almost to "Carrie's Peak" here - still plenty to go

You can make it - its only right there (or maybe just behind that)
Torreys and Grays on the left horizon and Evans and Birstadt above Carrie's head

Nalumon and Carrie on top - 14er #8 for N and #1 for C

another poor-form summit handstand

Carrie got in on the summit handstand action too

flag with a flag on top of Quandary Peak

Nalumon posed for a selfie with me and the flag

Quandary Peak summit panorama looking Northish

By the time we headed back down there were many less people. If it wasn't for the potential afternoon storms this would be the way to do 14ers (of course if it wasn't for the storms most people would start much later too). We were in no rush heading down and took some photo and food breaks as necessary. There was a cute baby mountain goat among other things. When we finally got down we took a bit of a rest and then caravanned to Carrie's place outside of Denver. It was pretty ridiculous seeing the line of people driving out of the metro area up into the mountains for the weekend. I am truly thankful that my life does not include that ordeal - or at least not since I lived in Portland. We had a most wonderful and relaxing weekend with plenty of oxygen, sunshine, pampering, laundry, showers, great food we didn't have to cook, adorable and adoring tow-heads, a bit of slacklining, and baking cookies.

mountain goats near "Carrie's Peak"

James takes a pic of the goats

Torreys Peak summit panorama looking Southish - Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross are in the middle

Summary of August 12, 1 14er, about 6.75 miles, 3,450 feet of elevation gain, crowds, mountain goats, tears, and Carrie's first 14er.

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