Brit and Ellie drove up with me Saturday evening to Silver Plume.  We spent the night in the A-Basin Room of this modest B&B, the Silver Valley Bed & Breakfast.  Surprisingly nice place on Clear Creek, a few miles past Georgetown.  Above is a photo of their backyard, from a wooden porch swing.

The first mile of  our 3.5 mile climb included this creek crossing.  Brit demonstrates here how not to cross the fast flowing snow melt.  She said her feet were numb the rest of the hike.

We took our time hiking up, stopping here about half way, to smell the alpine flowers and eat some grapes.

We summit the peak in about 3 hours.  Ellie’s first 14er at age 14.  Pretty special.  That’s Grays and Torreys to the right of Brit.

What is it with girls and yoga poses?  Pretty funny, after our deliberate pace up to the ridge, Ellie nearly sprinted up the final pile of rocks to the peak.

I’m not sure which view I like most from Mt. Bierstadt, east or west.  It’s an awesome view of Mt. Evans to the east.  Actually, you can continue on across a knife-edge ridge to Mt. Evans.  I’d like to do that some day.

You can see Mt Evans in the upper left of this photo above.  There are some lakes below, that add to the view.

 

The western views contain the most snowcapped peaks.  Brit and Ellie enjoyed sliding down a long snowpack on our descent.  I was impressed by their bravery, they simply thought it was fun.  The link takes you to the video on YouTube.  Overall, I had an awesome Father’s Day.  Got my long run in on Saturday.  Even installed a garbage disposal without having to make additional trips to Lowes.  Great weekend.