Wednesday after work my wife and I tossed our packs into the car and drove up to Dawson Saddle and hiked to the top of Mt. Lewis. There is a great camping area on the eastern flank of the mountain. We setup the tent, hung the bear rope and started cooking dinner all before the sun set.
It was pretty windy that night but we stayed warm in our tent.
Sunrise view from our camp
Probably overkill but I wanted my wife to feel comfortable that no fury creatures were going to come visit us in the night.
Cooking eggs, bacon & toast for breakfast!
Packing up.
Summit Shots!
Thursday morning, after we hiked off of Mt. Lewis, my wife dropped me off near the Devils Canyon trailhead, where I met a buddy of mine and we drove to the locked gate at Alder Saddle. From there we mountain biked up 3N173 to the turn off for Mt Pacifico. We stashed our bikes and hiked one mile to the top.
View looking south while hiking up Mt. Pacifico
The summit of Mt. Pacifico - a few rather fun boulder problems can be found to get to the top of the summit block
It was an amazing summit covered in awesome rock formations that were a lot of fun to scramble up.
There is a rather nice campground at the top of Mt. Pacifico which is unfortunately closed due to the Station Fire. We found a nice site overlooking the desert and had our lunch.
The area was pretty badly burnt...
Waterman, East Twin Peak, Winston, Lewis, Throop, Baldy, etc... Great views!
Mt. Hillyer and the Front Range
Someone bolted a few lines up this formation but the bolts are so close together you could aid climb it. WAY overbolted...
Afterwards we hiked back down to our bikes and rode towards Granite Mountain. I was stung by a rather nasty bee at this point, and even three days later my leg is still throbbing!
Topped out on Granite Mountain (which is pretty badly burnt). Before the fire I suspect it was a rather beautiful summit though. Afterwards we made the long ride back to the car which, thankfully, was mostly downhill!
