Hiking pictures (Venable Lake, Colorado) [56k warning]

koanicriddle · Post by **koanicriddle** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:15 pm

I posted a few of these threads over on GG, so I thought I'd post one here. My friend Stephanie (and her dog Casper) and I went hiking about a week and a half ago, aiming to get to the Venable Lakes here in the Sangre de Cristos range (in Colorado). All the pics have been resized and all that to meet Photobucket's storage requirements...

To start off, a pic of Casper:

A few pics of Venable Falls, a waterfall which lies about 2 miles from the trailhead (my guidebook says one mile, but the author was on crack, I'm sure of it):

Further along the trail, we were surprised by the amount of snow in some sections, though it was nothing we couldn't hike across. A few shots from off the trail:

The hike to the lakes took us a little over 3 hours. The first look at the basin the lakes reside in:

An old cabin we were surprised to find, not far from the trail (Casper lurks at the bottom of this one):

The Venable Lakes (or what's left of them this time of year):

A shot of the valley from on high (12,000 feet or so):

The uber-cool Stephanie (seriously, she may be the single coolest human being ever), being attacked by a vicious beast:

It was getting late as we hiked back down (and a wee bit chilly; thank god for my warm toque!), and I managed to get a decent pic of a sun-tinted peak:

A bit later, the sun nearly down:

There you have 'em. About a 14 mile hike, round trip. Steph and I talked about doing a long loop hike next summer, starting with the Venable trail, hiking to where it connects with Commanche trail (up on the Phantom Terrace, about 13,000 feet up), then back to the trailhead via Commanche. I'm really looking forward to that; I'm also curious to see what the Venable Lakes look like when they're full of runoff.

setaside · Post by **setaside** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:20 pm

Damn, I'm not an outdoors-type of person but if I lived anywhere near THAT ... I'd become one. My dad lives in San Bern, California and the mountains are only a couple of miles from his house. When my family and I traveled out there in August we made it a point to travel up the mountains at least twice while we were there. Beautiful.

Vegetable Man · Post by **Vegetable Man** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:21 pm

Beautiful pics, really makes me want to get out of the city. Last time I was in Colorado was about 14-15 years ago, definitely one of the more scenic parts of the country. It's currently on my short list of places to move, contending with Santa Barbara, Lake Tahoe, and Austin.

What kind of camera were you using?

koanicriddle · Post by **koanicriddle** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:28 pm

Vegetable Man wrote:What kind of camera were you using?

Just a humble little Canon A60, a 2 megapixel camera. Pretty sturdy construction, plus it wasn't wildly expensive, so it's a pretty good fit for hiking/camping trips. I figure that if it gets dropped onto a rock, into a river, or whatnot, I'm not out a lot of money. And I think it takes pretty good pics, though they almost always have to be sharpened a bit during post-processing.

Interloper · Post by **Interloper** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 9:42 pm

Hey, that is one awesome dog! I gotta get me a hikin' dog. Great pictures of the scenery. Good to see you don't take living near that country for granted. I went on a "fall colors" hike a couple weeks ago, this tempts me to post some pics also.

EngineNo9 · Post by **EngineNo9** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 9:54 pm

This thread is useless without boobs.

koanicriddle · Post by **koanicriddle** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:39 pm

EngineNo9 wrote:This thread is useless without boobs.

Hope one boobie is enough... here ya go:

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:19 pm

Great pictures. One thing about Canon digicams is they always have great color. Cute dog, cute wive/gf. Must have been a lot of fun.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 8:35 am

Great shots as always, koanic. Those waterfall pictures actually remind me more of some of the Upper Peninsuala (Michigan) falls in the Keeweenaw than they do of typical Rocky Mountain falls. 14 mile round-trip -- that's a bit more than just a "hike" if you ask me. That's a serious walk. Was 12,000' your highest elevation?

~Neal

koanicriddle · Post by **koanicriddle** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:54 pm

The Meal wrote:14 mile round-trip -- that's a bit more than just a "hike" if you ask me. That's a serious walk. Was 12,000' your highest elevation?

It honestly didn't seem like 14 miles, though, if only because the hike down took about half the time the hike up did. And going up, the elevation gain is steady, with very few sections I'd consider steep, which makes the hike much more enjoyable.

According to my guidebooks and maps, the first Venable Lake is at 12,200 feet; we hiked a bit above that, so I'd guess our max elevation for the day was around 12,300 or 12,400 (someday I'll splurge on an altimeter). We got a bit of a late start (didn't get to the trailhead until a little after 1pm) so we had to turn around before we reached the Phantom Terrace, which would have put us at about 13,000.