90 miles in the San Juans

Weminuche with Lamar

Strawberry fields. Then things get real. Hailstorm & lightning over Skyline/Opal pass. (My children are all born and named, but if yours are not, you might consider Skyline Opal for the shortlist.)

Window over Continental Divide:  Colorado River over yonder, Rio Grande that-a-way.

Climbing out over Rock Lake.

Uncompahgre with Brian

“Acabamos de bajar la sierra y entramos en las riberas y vegas del río de San Francisco, nombrado de los yutas ancapagri (que según el intérprete dice Laguna Colorada) porque dicen haber cerca de su nacimiento un ojo de agua colorada, caliente, y de mal gusto. En esta vega del río, que es grande y muy llana, hay una camino muy ancho y trillado. Por él río abajo anduvimos legua y media al noreste, y paramos junto a una ciénega grande muy abundante de pastos que nombramos La Ciénega de San Francisco. Hoy cinco leguas.”

“We finished descending the sierra and came upon the banks and meadows of El Río San Francisco—among the Yutas called Ancapagari (which, according to our interpreter, means Red Lake), because they say that near its source there is a spring of red-colored water, hot and ill-tasting. On this river meadow, which is large and very level, there is a wide and well-beaten trail. We went along it downstream for a league and a half northeast and halted next to a big marsh greatly abounding in pasturage, which we named La Ciénega de San Francisco. Today five leagues.”

—from The Domínguez-Escalante Journal, Fray Silvestre Vélez De Escalante (August 26, 1776)

(Or, as Brian put it, “This water tastes like a bloody nose.”)

Backpacking with a geologist is a to have the rocks read to you, a tour through deep time: andesite, breccia, porphyry, intrusive dikes.

Also, plenty of time to talk movies. Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Star Warsessss, Big Lebowski, Never Cry Wolf, Dr. Strangelove, The Future is Unwritten, and so on.  (And, of course, Rubin and Ed, and its longstanding efficacy as a friendship-compatibility test.) Here Brian explains why he didn’t care for La La Land.

Brian takes real pictures.

Coyote, pika, sheep, Uncompahgre fritilary butterfly.

Nice marmot.