Twin Sisters landslide

Yesterday I took a short hike up the Twin Sisters trail. It's 1.5 miles and a few hundred feet of gain to the landslide caused by the 2013 Colorado Flood.

Left to right: Mt Meeker (13,916'), Longs Peak (14,259'), Mt Lady Washington (13,281'), Battle Mountain (12,041'), Estes Cone (11,006').

Longs Peak, 5.2 mi away (105mm focal length)

This photo was taken standing in the middle of the landslide (the trail crosses it) and shows the devastation that almost reached Aspen Lodge. To get a sense of scale, try to spot the pickup truck at the edge of the trees where the debris field forks to the right (about 4 o'clock from Aspen Lodge).

iPhone panorama shot from the landslide debris field

The other photo shows the Twin Sisters landslide I was standing on, viewed from the summit of Estes Cone, 1.93 miles away. This shot was taken on a hike to Estes Cone.

The third image is the aerial view of the hike and landslide, courtesy of Google Maps satellite view. As you can see from the GPS track, I went a little beyond the landslide. The hike was just over 3.5 miles with about 900 feet of gain/loss.

Here's another photo looking up at the landslide debris field. 

Pop goes the weasel!

Susan and I have seen our fair share of Colorado wildlife, but one little mammal has mostly eluded us until recently.

A few years ago in the alpine tundra, near the Tundra World Nature Trail near Rock Cut in Rocky Mountain National Park, we caught fleeting glimpses of a long-tailed weasel. But it moved too fast in and out of the rocks for us to get a very good look at it and it was impossible to photograph it.

One morning, Susan was looking out the window and caught some motion in our front yard and when she zeroed in on it, she saw it was a long-tailed weasel, the first one either of us had ever observed in our yard. But this one too was on the move and it quickly disappeared from our yard and crossed the street and into the tall grass. I didn't get to see it.

Long-tailed Weasel in the yard