Day 21 to Galena Mountain

mileage 21 elevation gain 4600 feet

"Was that thunder or your stomach growling?" -Tony

Today we spent the morning walking along the flanks of Colorado's two biggest mountains, Elbert and Massive. Lots of people were out for the day climbing these two 14ners. We pondered climbing them as well but decided not. The geographic divide swings well west of Elbert and Massive. We'd save our foray above 14000 feet to Gray's Peak which sits on the divide.

We also took in 2 wilderness areas, Mt Elbert in the morning (ok, the sign in the photo above is too dark to read but it really does say Mt Elbert Wilderness Area) and Holy Cross Wilderness in the afternoon. We passed in and out of numerous glacier carved valleys and saw lots of erratics ( huge boulders deposited miles from their origin by glaciers) as in the photo below. One of the valleys held the Leadville Fish Hatchery though we saw no escapees in its stream.

From camp atop Galena Mountain we had a magnificent panorama- the Holy Cross Wilderness, Gore Range, Tennessee and Fremont passes, 10 Mile Range, Leadville, Turquoise Lake, Mosquito Range, Mounts Elbert and Massive and the Arkansas Valley.