Mountain Hiking

After the conference, I stayed back for a few days to explore the Rockies. I had all day Thursday with no plans since John will only be arriving later that evening. I decided to join two people I met at the conference (they are actually from KBS but I just didn't bump into them at KBS) to go hiking. Guess what, they are actually pretty hard core hikers who have climbed tundras and all kinds of huge mountains before. My experience - "pek sua" with gee ku and gee kim. That is barely Penang Hill height, which is ONLY about 3000 ft! Haha, but now, Penang Hill will be sub sub water for me ler! :P Will definitely want to do that when I go back next year...and now we have Aun Aun as the guide too since he has done it all the way.

Since we could not check into our respective hotels until after 3pm, we left our bags at the YMCA and walked about 1 mile to get a shuttle bus that took us to Bear Lake. From there (which is at 9400 ft), we hiked up to Flattop Mountain of 12300 ft, which is a 4 mile hike. While 4 mi is typically not a big deal for me but going up hill on a rocky trail with sneakers - Ping wasn't doing too well. What more, hiking with two hard core hikers who have hiking boots and longer legs. At one point, I told them that I'll meet them at the top and took my time hiking up. But every once in a while when I look up at the sceneries (instead of looking down at my feet and where to step next), it sure is worth it to make the hike. This is definitely a popular trail because there were tons of people...mostly passing by me. :P

View from my first rest stop, about 50 minutes into the hike.

Halfway to the top, when the plant community has changed to a more shrubbery ones.

View of Lake Emerald... from 3/4 way.

Phew! Finally at the top! The plants on the mountain peak are mostly grasses. Plant density is also very low as there are more rocks than plants.

It was freezing cold up there! We passed by a few glaciers and came to one, the Tyndall Glacier, where we saw a guy preparing to ski down the steep glacier.

Can you imagine hiking all the way up to the top with your ski, ski down the glacier (which only took like 1 min) and then have to climb up the glacier to get back on the trail to hike down. Gila! But here he goes...

Wow, he made it through the rocks! (A bunch of people watching with us was cheering him at this point.)

And he made it all the way down.

View of Emerald Lake from the top.

One of the reward being up there is I get to see this marmot sun-tanning itself. :P

Another 500 ft elevation/0.6 mi hike, it will be the Hallett Peak but I have had enough rock trails for that day. If it wasn't that rocky, or if I had better shoes, I would have done since it is only 500 ft.

When you are up there, it feels like the clouds are so close. This is my favorite shot from Flattop Mountain. Too bad a lot of the photos came out looking washed out due to increased UV intensity from the top.

The view of Longs Peak right at the back with the clouds. It is the tallest mountain in the Rocky Mountain National Park with an elevation of 14300 ft. If the weather is great, the hike up to the top, which is an 8 miles trail and 5000 ft of elevation, it takes approximately 12-14 hours for a hard core hiker. But the scary thing is, because of the rocky surface close to the top, people have died when the weather is not as pleasant, especially when it snows or when there is a thunderstorm. But, I would still like to climb Mt. Kota Kinabalu of 13,400 ft someday. That was last years vacation the Sunway gang did that I missed. :( I never seem to go back at the right time. Hehe.