The Great Sand Dunes, formed less than 440,000 years ago, was a destination I’ve been trying to get to since I moved to Colorado almost four years ago. For some reason or another something always seemed to get in the way whether it be work, sold out campsites, or blistering heat. So when my buddy Andy decided to fly out for a Southwest Colorado road-trip I knew we had to lump the Dunes into our route, hopefully backpacking and camping in them.

The infamous Deluge Lake hike. A simple 9.1 mile hike staring in East Vail, Colorado. Despite being steep and easily accomplished in a day, up until this attempt I had been 0-2 on this trail. The first two times that I attempted this trail was in the winter, and both times resulted in failure. Thick snow, post-holing deep down to me knees, and relatively short days of sunlight meant neither time I’d had even made it past the aspen grove.

Greetings, This post will have contribution from both Nate and myself (Tuan). As stated in my previous post, I wanted to provide more details on the hikes and a little less fluff on personal anecdotes. The goal of the hike was to get a more technical peak under our belts for our preparation for the South America trip. We chose the Father Dyer peak a couple of months back with the Labor Day weekend as the target date.

Trip length 8.7 miles + (depends if you continue on to Iceberg Lakes over-look) Elevation gain 2,099 ft to Heart Lake James Peak Wilderness TIP: We set out to do the Iceberg Lakes hike, which includes Rogers Peak Lake and Heart Lake, however, due to inclement weather we stayed at the lake below Rogers Pass and the CDT (Rogers Pass Lake). By the time I got home Friday from work the crew of three was waiting for me: Mike, Sara, and her Pops.

For years now, Justin and I have complained to each other, after the fact of course, that we didn’t do a backpacking trip over the extended 4th of July weekend. Well, this year we decided to change that and really maximize the long weekend. After calling the ranger station in Silverton to get the latest scoop on the conditions, we decided on a 10 mile loop of the Highland Mary Lakes in the Weminuche Wilderness over Ice Lakes Basin due to the latter being mostly frozen still.