Sunday 8/03/08 Mt. Tweto

Mt. Tweto (13,672)
8/03/08
~5 miles/2,300 vertical
Jeff, Allison and Sierra Valliere

We again parked after the crossing of Mosquito Creek where we parked for yesterday’s trip http://www.fourteenerworldforum.com/showthread.php?t=12847 and headed North up the valley toward Tweto. The hike could not have been simpler and we made the summit in about 90 minutes taking it quite casual. From the summit, we debated heading over to Mount Arkansas, but again clouds were building and it looked a bit further and more involved than we were willing to commit to. I considered running over there, but the lure of the sprawling valley of wildflowers was overpowering.

Again, I was in la la land and took countless photos of the vast array of flowers carpeting the valley. We had the entire place to ourselves and were amazed and thankful that the masses cruise past without a glance. Good stuff!!

Pictures:

http://s147.photobucket.com/albums/r296/jeffvalliere/Tweto/

Saturday 8/02/08 "Repeater Peak", Mosquito Peak, Treasurevault Mountain

“Repeater Peak” (13548), Mosquito Peak (13,781), Treasurevault Mountain (13,701)8/02/08
~6 miles/~3,200 vertical
Jeff, Allison and Sierra Valliere

For a long time I have been meaning to get over to the Mosquito Pass area and stroll a few easy bicentennials. George has a cabin nearby and has been running up there for years and always raves about it, so Allison and I finally decided to have a look.

We parked a bit past the London Mine just below the first really steep/rough section of road after the crossing of Mosquito Creek. We got a later than hoped start at 9:15am, but we were not too worried as we knew it was to be a short hike and we were just into taking things leisurely.

Shortly into the hike, we ran across some amazing areas of wildflowers and I took a few pictures, but figured there would be more time for that later. We loosely followed the road to where it crosses the saddle between London Mountain and “Repeater Peak” and headed up the East Ridge.

The summit came in no time and we kept on moving toward Mosquito, as the building and antennas were not all that appealing. The walk over to Mosquito and then Treasurevault was quite simple and uneventful and we took a nice break on Mosquito. By the time we got to Treasurevault however, there was a big dark cloud building quickly above us.

I of course wanted to run over and nab Tweto and Arkansas, but was just as happy to bail off the ridge and save that for tomorrow given the threatening weather.We meandered our way down valley and took a long break at a very tranquil lake above Oliver Twist Lake. Of course the dark cloud had dissipated or moved on and it was again a perfect sunny day.

We took advantage of this opportunity to completely take our time and not be rushed.As we descended back down the valley, we came across the amazing wildflower patches that we noted on the ascent and even more that we had missed earlier.

I was in picture taking heaven and lingered for an unknown amount of time snapping picture after picture, completely lost in the moment.I think we finally left around 2 and headed back to George’s cabin where we read, napped and then headed to Alma for an excellent meal at the South Park Saloon. It was awesome to just take things easy today and relax.

Thanks again to George for "letting" us crash his cabin ;).

Pictures:http://s147.photobucket.com/albums/r296/jeffvalliere/Mosquito/