Hiking Buffalo

Last Friday, we went hiking right by the cabin on Buffalo Mountain. It is not a fourteener, but still a challenging hike. You start at 9,800 and the final elevation is 12,777. Well, that is if you make it to the top. This is my second time attempting this mountain and the second time that I was not able to make it to the top.

Buffalo is on the left

We started hiking around 9 in the morning. We made it through the trees and got into a major boulder field. For about 1/2 a mile you are going uphill with just boulders around you. Quite the challenge. As we were climbing we could see the starts of a very dark cloud. One thing about thunderstorms in the mountains, the last place you want to be is at the top of a mountain when it hits. We continued up hoping that since we were less than a mile from the top we could make it. As we got out of the boulder field, the cloud was bigger and blacker and definately raining just a few miles away. We went on and finally turned back, 1/4 mile from the top. Thunder and lightning are a sure sign to go back towards the trees.

As far as we got, 1/4 mile from the top
Now you can see the clouds, just as we got into the boulder field and it was starting to rain.

As we went through the boulder field we got rained on, hailed on, and definately some loud thunder. It was a little slick, but we made it out before the really bad part of the storm hit. When we got to the trees we had to take cover for about tens minutes as we were in a full out down pour. Then, we had huge pieces of hail. Needless to say, we were happy to be on our way down at this pont.

Wet and taking cover.

And again, we did not make it to the top. We shall try again one more time in August. Laurel and I need to make it to the top. I will keep you posted on how that adventure goes. Next time, if there is any percetage of rain in the forecast we are going to reschedule.