After our gold prospecting adventure at Cache Creek Mike and I headed south along the Sawatch Range and then up the Clear Creek drainage. We passed the lake and drove through all the cool ghost towns from the old time mining days up there. We stopped at the ghost town of Rockdale-Silverdale (I don't know why it has two names) and setup our camp for the night. We checked out the old cabins and the old mining artifacts a bit, but a rainstorm moved in and rained on us all evening.

Cabins at Rockdale-Silverdale

Plaque about Rockdale-Silverdale

Clear Creek

In the morning we got up early, packed up camp, and headed up the road. We drove up as far as we could with my truck and then parked and started hiking. We hiked about 2 miles on the road through some big beautiful meadows to get to the actual trailhead. From there the trail started climbing up making several switchbacks. Those of you that regularly read my blogs know that I've climbed hundreds of peaks and have lots of experience at high elevations. But Mike, on the other hand, had never climbed any peaks at all! This was his very first. And the high elevations were affecting him a bit. But we kept a slow and steady pace and stopped often to rest. Eventually we broke above the tree line and the trail briefly plateaued at a small meadow with a little lake in the middle. We stopped there and took a quick hydration/snack break. We rested and looked up towards our destination, the summit of this massive mountain.

Hiking through the big meadows along Clear Creek

Climbing up

Breaking tree line and getting our first views of the summit

Looking up at the summit from the little lake

From the little lake we started the second leg of the climb. We started encountering some snow patches along the trail, and on these upper slopes the marmots were healthy. There were hundreds of them running around all over. By far the most I've ever seen... ever! We climbed up and up, through a mix of alpine meadow and talus. There were several people on the trail, most of which seemed to us to be in quite a hurry. We took our time and enjoyed the climb, and when we arrived at the summit we were able to have it all to ourselves!! Mike was quite exhausted and a bit loopy from the elevation, but the excitement and the incredible views overshadowed everything else. We sat on the summit for awhile and hydrated and had some more snacks. It was a little breezy, but it was actually very pleasant.

Climbing up above the little lake

Summit views

Eventually we started down the mountain. We hiked back down through all the marmots, passed the little lake and back down the switchbacks to the trailhead. We were all pumped up from our successful climb, and going down was much easier than going up, so we got down much quicker. From there we just had two final miles back down the road to the truck. And from there we headed back to Mikes place for the night wrapping up our Colorado adventure. And the next morning I was on the road heading back home to California.