Nice Weather at Last

Yesterday was warm and sunny, so I went and hiked up the front side of Mt Herman. Literally the front – the trail I was following apparently didn’t go to the top but faded out as the slope got steeper and steeper roughly due east of the peak. It was admittedly too steep for it to be a good idea, but I scrambled over rocks (and through bushes and shin-deep snow) and eventually made it to the top:
Mt Herman Peak

It’s been a while since I went all the way to the top of the front range. Having just climbed to the top of a mountain, the view of Pike’s Peak always puts into perspective just how insignificant everything around it is (picture taken from about 9,000 ft):
Pike's Peak

Also, the view east is pretty spectacular too. There was a brief time when the conditions were right and I could barely make out a distant wind farm, but here’s a view of Monument and the majority of Black Forest:
Black Forest

And because I was playing with the macro feature on my camera, here are a couple flower pictures:
Open Flower

Closed Flower