01/01/14 Bear Peak 8461'

One of the rock formations in the clouds

I went out on the first of the year with Carrie, my friend Joe, his buddy Andy, and Andy's dog, Maverick.  We decided on hiking up Shadow Canyon in the Boulder area to try to climb Bear Peak at least and possibly South Boulder Peak.  Shadow Canyon was one of Carrie's and mine and it leads to a saddle between the two peaks.  Bear Peak is probably one of the peaks in the Boulder area I have climbed more than any other.  You'll notice that I give no number to Bear Peak.  That is because it is not a ranked summit.  It gets a "Soft" rank, which means it rises between 280 and 299 feet from the saddle that connects it to higher ground--in this case, South Boulder Peak.

Near the saddle

It was a cool morning that was partly cloudy and we met at the NCAR Trailhead.  We left a car there and then drove to the South Mesa Trailhead and started hiking from there.  We took trails that led us to the beginning of Shadow Canyon.  It felt really good to be entering the canyon again after so many years and it brought back many good memories from many hikes.  As we climbed up the canyon the clouds broke a bit and we had a few short moments of sunshine.  As we neared the top of the canyon and the saddle I was surprised to see how different it was as a fire had gone through the area recently--at least more recently than I had been there--and there were many burned trees and more views than I had ever seen from there.  We could see most of the way up to South Boulder Peak.

View toward Green Mountain from the summit

At the saddle we made the decision to just head for Bear Peak as we were going to try to avoid coming down an icy Fern Canyon Trail and go on the longer Bear Canyon Trail.  This was fine with me because, like I wrote earlier, Bear Peak is one of my favorites.  From the saddle it was a short climb and we were wrapping around the summit block.  From  the Fern Canyon junction Carrie and I went up the summit rocks first as Andy didn't want Maverick going up the snowy and icy rocks.  It took some care to make our way to the summit and we celebrated being with an old, mountain friend again.  I snapped a few photos and then we headed down so Joe and Andy could make it up.

Flood damage to the Bear Canyon Trail

Once we were all back at the junction we headed down the West Ridge Trail to the Bear Canyon Trail.  These two trails were also well-used by me when I lived in Boulder and it was great to walk them again.  They brought me to one of my favorite spots--where the Green Bear Trail heads up to Green Mountain.  From there, we cruised down the Bear Canyon Trail.  It was interesting to see some of the damage from the fall floods and to see how different the trail was in spots.  As the afternoon grew older we descended the canyon and eventually came to the Mesa Trail, which we took back to the junction with the trail that took us back to NCAR.  It had been a great day and a fun hike up a peak that I will always love.

Elevation gain:  3210'     Total gain:  18,420'