Tuesday morning we got up before dawn with a long day ahead. The tents were fairly wet from the rain overnight, so we ate a quick breakfast and would save breaking camp for our return. The first part of the day would be spent climbing to the summit of Mount Harvard.

Hike to Harvard

We left plenty early to take advantage of the mild morning weather. The route to the top wasn’t too complicated. Just go up!

Starting out

We crossed a few snowfields and went around another. The climbing was very steep up to the ridge line. I got there first and spotted several mountain goats close by. They looked calm for the moment, but I knew they would be easily spooked so I turned back to the group below and made the shhh motion with my forefinger to my lips. The boys, with ipods cranked, said ‘WHAAAT?’ in response very loudly. I turned back to the goats as they were starting to stir and get restless. I hissed back, “beeee quiet”. Still with the tunes rocking, and completely oblivious to what I was trying to tell them, the response came back, “WHY!?!?!”. At this point the goats were all up and making their way off the ridge. I yelled back, “Shut your hole!” but it was too late. The goats were gone. Oh, well. At least I got one pic.

Mountain Goats - shhhh!

From that point the route climbed steeply through broken rock. The views off to the west were incredible, it was such a fine morning to be in the mountains.

Climbing through the rocks high above Bear Lake

So far, so good

Corbin taking in the view

Then we arrived at the final pitch. A little bit of scrambling was needed to climb up to the summit. It was a great way to finish off the ascent.

Final scramble to the summit

We enjoyed our time on the summit together and took in the amazing views. A great moment was had when one of the boys was able to call home and report on his successful climb. It was super cool because he had come up short on an attempt last year so it was especially sweet this time around.

Dad, I made it! Bryant calling home from the summit of his first 14er.

Mount Harvard - 14,420'

Striking pose - or striking a pose

All too soon it was time to head down and get on with the rest of our day. We made quick work of the descent.

Dropping onto a snowfield

A little snow to deal with, but it wasn't too bad

Descending past Bear Lake back to our camp (credit: Tyler Lofgren)

Tyler caught a rare pic of me smiling. Easy to do when you are in a beautiful place doing what you love. (credit: Tyler Lofgren)

Flowers were popping everywhere

Once we made it back to camp, it was time to pack up our gear and head out to our next destination. Kroenke lake.

Hike to Kroenke Lake

We retraced our steps from the previous afternoon for a couple of miles, until we made it back to the main canyon.

One of many creek crossings

Then we headed upstream on a good trail for a few miles to the lake.

Flower growing out of a log

Flowers by a stream

We found a great campsite and were all able to get a little down time during a light afternoon rain shower.

Ready for dinner

Lasagne

The one downside of this trip was that everywhere we traveled was under fire restrictions. This meant we couldn’t spend the evenings hanging out by a fire telling jokes and the usual stories. The boys played some card games, but everyone was tired enough from the hiking that we all went to bed fairly early.