We got up early this morning so we could hike up the West Maroon Pass trail. I made instant coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping and we left in the Jeep around 6:05.

We headed towards Crested Butte and I had Clif Bars for breakfast.

We stopped at the Phillips 66 in Crested Butte to fill up the Jeep at $2.999/gal — yes, gas is expensive in remote mountain towns, especially when there are tourists to be gouged.

We headed up Gothic Road (FS-317) and went by lots of wildflowers in bloom. We went over Schofield Pass, 10,707 ft (3263m), at 7:10 and continued on a little way into Schofield Park. The road between Schofield Park and Crystal is one of the most difficult 4WD roads in Colorado, but the road from Crested Butte up to Schofield Park was very tame.

We parked at the trailhead for the West Maroon Pass around 7:15. It was the first time that either one of us had been there. We started hiking up the trail to West Maroon Pass and quickly entered the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. After hiking about a mile, we started going through an alpine meadow filled with wildflowers! It was incredible. There were Mountain Bluebells, Blue Columbine, Blue Flax, Larkspur, Red Paintbrush, Yellow Paintbrush, Cow Parsnip, and Monument Plant all in bloom and all mixed together. Conditions were good for landscape photography with scattered puffy white clouds and a very light breeze. It was nice to photograph something other than wildflower portraits for a change. The clouds didn't stick around too long, and after the breeze started to pick up we started to head back to the Jeep.
We stopped to photograph some Blue Columbine in the shade. With a lot of patience, I was able to get some nice images of one particular bloom (left) before packing up and heading back to the Jeep. We left around 10:35.

We took the road to Paradise Divide (FS-319) and went by lots of other wildflowers in bloom. The low marshy areas were covered with Elephant Heads. We reached Paradise Divide, 11,250 ft (3429m), at 11:00 and got out to enjoy the view for a while. J and I had been there before.

We continued along FS-734, aka Slate River Road, and looked for a suitable place to boondock. The scenery was spectacular, but there weren't many wildflowers.

We went to Clark's Market in Crested Butte around 12:30 to pick up some things. We left around 12:45.

We stopped on our way out of town so J could call E to wish her happy birthday and left a voicemail.
We returned to the RV around 1:05. I downloaded the images from this morning while I finished the blog entry for two days ago. Then I downselected the images from this morning in Capture One (C1). I took a 40-minute nap around 3:20. Then I did some computer work. J started to prepare dinner and E called J's iPhone. I picked it up and talked w/her for a while. When J picked up the phone, the AT&T signal became sporadic and conversation became frustrating. J tried calling E on my Palm Treo 755p through Verizon Wireless, and the connection wasn't any better. We'll try to call her when we get better reception.

We had dinner around 5:40 of steak fajitas with leftover steak from two days ago and they were tasty. We enjoyed watching the male Rufous Hummingbirds and male and female Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds feeding at our feeder just on the other side of the window at our dinette.

After dinner, I did some more computer work then processed three images for the blog. I worked up a blog entry before going to bed.