(non-skiing) 14'er Hike: Quandary 8/29/09

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Spent the weekend in Breckenridge staying at my friends place and decided to get another hike in.

I'll start off with the obligatory ski related pics :wink:

Quandary is another 'easy' 14'er with no technical climbing (at least on the standard route). It's about 3,450' verts in just under 3 miles one way topping out at 14,265 feet. The trailhead is super easy to access just a few miles south of Breckenridge which makes it a very popular hike. I did my normal 'easy' 14er start at ~6:20am and there were only about a dozen cars at the trailhead (Colo schools are already back in session) giving me hope that It would not be too crowded (boy was I wrong). Anyway, it was actually a warmer start than I expected and I quickly passed most of those who started ahead of me.

The trail is fairly direct with not a lot of zig-zagging. So, much of it has decent pitch though nothing too crazy (nothing at all that is technical on this approach).

I summit-ed around 9am with maybe 8 people beating me to it. The hordes would soon follow though...

The down-hike and local fauna to come in post #2

 

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I headed back down from the summit around 9:30am as the summit had a decently cold breeze going. Little did I know how freaking many people would be coming up the trail behind me. Literally hundreds of people.

Around 13,200 foot level 2 mountain goats were hanging out fairly near the trail so I spent 15 minutes playing with my camera trying to get some good shots (my knees tend to dislike going downhill anyway so I wasn't in a big hurry). My guess is they were female (nannies) since they hadn't quite completely molted. Though I'm not sure since they should have their babies near them this time of year if they are nannies. I think I got some decent pictures.

Not too long after the goats the sky darkened and looked threatening so I hiked quickly down to treeline still meeting people going UP the trail. And 10 minutes before I finished the thunder and rain came - a bit earlier than 'normal' for typical summer. I made it back to the car by ~12:20pm. Not a bad day except for the crazy down hike of dodging people.

 

[Admin]

Nice shots of Billy! (Or if your guess is correct I should say Billie-Jean.)

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

 

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And after further review --- definitively Billie.

I took a couple minutes of video of them where it becomes, ahem, obvious. So my new theory is that they must still be juveniles (2 or 3yrs old).

 

[snowave]

Nice hike/picts.. but man, and I thought it was crowded on the trails down here in socal.. :-s