Colorado in 2012?

I got invited to go on a two-week backpacking trip in Colorado in 2012. Currently, I'm trying to figure out how to get it done. One thing about the trip is that, of course, Carole won't be able to join me for the major part of it. She kayaks, and camps and walks some trails with me, but will never backpack. It just ain't gonna happen.

At any rate, the place we'll be hiking/climbing is the San Juan Range in Colorado. For sheer volume, it's the biggest mountain range in the state. Not the highest, but the biggest by land mass. It does, of course, have several "fourteeners" (mountains over 14K feet in elevation) and we plan to bag a couple of those, maybe more.

Part of the San Juan Range. (Image by Jack B.)

Well, I'm still trying to figure it out. I need to get the time off from work and buy a few things that I don't have in my backpacking stuff. But I'm going to do what it takes to get out there. Our animals are all going extinct, our wilderness is shrinking, our air and water grows more fouled each year. If I want to see these relatively unspoiled places either before they're gone or my life is over, I need to get cracking.

View from Windom Peak. Image by Josh Hansen.
(This one is on our list to climb.)