I've been a little too connected as of late, and I needed to fix that. There's no place better than the South San Juans for disconnecting and feeling like the world is delightfully large. There's no month like September to go hiking in CO.

There's not much about my trip that contains beta that would improve your life. It's mainly a photo dump. But honestly, if you need my advice or input, you're probably fucked. This is not limited to the mountains.

Bennett Peak

Not a whole lot to say about this one. It was a fine hike, and I saw zero people, but trails popular with dirt bikes just aren't amazing hiking trails.

Highlights:

• Clear skies eventually (though I was very sad "eventually" meant 4 AM).
• Testing out my ~30ish year old 50mm 1.4 lens for astrophotography. Turns out that the materials science has improved significantly over the course of the intervening decades. I'm convinced it has the biggest disparity between attention and impact of all the past technological changes in the past 50 years.
  
• Sleeping in.
• A delightful sunrise.
  
• Cow tools
  
• Views
  
• Seeing some very large hawks (I'm guessing) take off.
• Having a hawk discover that I'm having a beer at my campsite as it flew 20 yards over me, and screeching to let me know it had spotted me.

Platoro

I wasn't entirely sure I should've driven on the bridge over the Alamosa river near Stunner campground, given that it's partially under replacement and definitely looks sketchy. I didn't think about it too much and also didn't die.
Also I learned that it's still functional as the new bridge will be built in parallel to the old one. Civil engineering: it's fine!

Highlights:

• Rockfall that woke me up at 3 AM.
• Seeing the mist on the reservoir with my headlamp at 4 AM.
  
  
  
  • Stupid condensation ruining a perfectly good night-to-day timelapse. The downside of the aforementioned mist.
    
• Second rockfall at 6:30, when I realized what it was (and not actually some yahoos shooting guns at 3 in the morning, like I first thought). This video does not have the rockfall. Sorry.
  
• So many birds. I took the wrong lens on the hike that day. Otherwise, just a very pretty valley.
  
• Winston, who used me as a salt lick at the Gold Pan Cafe, then cleansed his palate by licking the table. They didn't have bread pudding at the moment, but I learned that the trick is "stale buns, Betty Crocker recipe, double the whiskey in the whiskey sauce".
  

Conejos

• Man, I don't like that road. Easy 4WD but I'm just not great at exposure in a car. I did do way better at taking the easier but exposed line on the way down.
• Trump Derangement Syndrome.
  
  
  I'm sad that we've functionally ceded the San Juans to Texans. But I'll take the money they pay for the hunting tags.
  
  Many, many Texans I've met along the way tell me how superior the state is. They always tell me this when they are visiting or living in a place that is not Texas.
  
  • Now I want to put a "Bernie Edition" badge on the Forester. I've never even voted for the guy, but if one wanted to lean into all things Vermont and we already have the Subaru...
  • The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese.
  • (One of my friends is from Vermont and was actually staff for Bernie. She has a cheese drawer in her fridge with a selection of a half-dozen cheeses at any time. She's living life right.)
• As I was walking up the road in the morning, I caught a glimpse of a bright light below the horizon. I did a double-take, and definitely saw eyes looking at me from ~30 yards away. I kept moving - I'm not good at species identification in the pitch black (or, in the daytime), and I'm especially not motivated when said identification could possibly include "mountain lion".
• There's less "trail" on the stretch between Conejos and and Hansen Creek than one might expect. I'm used to trail-less hiking, but it was surprising to do at a place where the map indicated that there was trail.
• Also, there is a game/social trail on the approach down to Saddle Creek that is definitely not on the map. If you're on autopilot at 4:30 AM and expecting it to be zero-choice hiking, and start to descend in the opposite direction from your objective...you're right that you're wrong.
• The expanse of it all. Being able to see the Sangres silhouette across the valley in the sunrise was pretty magical.
  
• No, really. I maybe took a 250 megapixel pano at the saddle above Tobacco Lake, and that only scratched the surface of what it's like being back there.
  

  

Kenosha Pass

A møøse once bit my sister.