The Next Summit: A Mountain Blog

06/18/2026

Our GAOA Trail Crew is killing it! These are your tax dollars at work. Thank you!

Big milestone on the CDT! 🌲 This May, our first-ever trail crew funded through the Great American Outdoors Act hit the ground in New Mexico's Gila National Forest... and they got after it.

Over two eight-day hitches on the Silver City Ranger District, the four-person crew tackled 24 miles of deferred maintenance on the Continental Divide Trail.

The numbers tell the story:
✅ 78 new drainage structures built
✅ 165 existing drains cleared and improved
✅ 1,670 feet of tread rebuilt
✅ 1,475 feet of brush cleared
✅ 14 trees felled to open the corridor
✅ 15 new signs installed

This work keeps the CDT safe, sustainable, and ready for the years of footsteps ahead. None of it would have been possible without the recreation staff of the Gila National Forest and a Trails+ Grant from the NM Outdoor Recreation Division Thank you both for your partnership and support! 🙌

The crew is now headed north to the Santa Fe National Forest. See the full recap and what's next 👇

Read here: https://ow.ly/2pQ850Zc6eO

06/17/2026

Colorado's wildflowers are popping... but here's what most "best hikes" lists skip: the bloom climbs about 1,000 feet up the mountain every couple of weeks. So the trail that's peaking this week isn't the one you'd hike in late July.

I mapped 15 of the best wildflower hikes in the state by elevation, so you can match the trail to the exact week it peaks — plus when Crested Butte goes off, and how to hike it all safely once the afternoon storms roll in.

Where are you hoping to catch the blooms this summer? 👇🌸

Full guide: https://thenextsummit.org/best-colorado-wildflower-hikes-2026/

06/16/2026

The government just changed the rules for rock climbing in America's wilderness — and almost nobody's talking about the catch.
After a 2-year fight, fixed anchors are finally protected on public lands. But the same move quietly reopens how our most protected roadless lands get managed — and public comment closes August 14.
Win, or something to watch? Share it with someone who hikes or climbs.

06/16/2026

Climbers, this one's been two years in the making.

The Interior Department just opened public comment on new guidance that would protect fixed anchors (bolts, pitons, slings) in federal wilderness, finally implementing what Congress passed in the EXPLORE Act. For routes on El Cap, in Joshua Tree, on Longs Peak, and across BLM land, that's a real win.

But there's a catch I dig into in the post: the same announcement quietly reopens the rulebook on Wilderness Study Areas... the roadless lands awaiting permanent protection. That part could cut the other way, and it's getting far less attention.

Public comment closes August 14. Here's what's actually in it, and how to weigh in! 👇

https://thenextsummit.org/interior-wilderness-climbing-fixed-anchors-2026/

Interior opened public comment on new wilderness climbing guidance that protects fixed anchors — alongside a quieter review of wilderness study areas.

06/15/2026

Colorado's high country builds afternoon thunderstorms almost daily in summer, and above treeline, there's nowhere to hide from lightning. The single most important habit a 14er hiker can build isn't fitness or fancy gear. It's the willingness to turn around.

The rule of thumb most of us live by: summit by late morning, headed down before noon. That means an alpine start in the dark, watching the sky the whole way up, and being honest enough to turn back short of the top when the clouds start stacking up. The summit will still be there next weekend. Make the decision before you leave the trailhead, when it's easy... not at 13,500 feet, when it's hard.

What's your personal turnaround time? 👇

🔗 My full mountain safety guide: https://thenextsummit.org/mountain-safety-guide/

06/10/2026

Picking which Colorado 14er to climb might be the hardest part of the whole thing. There are 58 of them, they range from a walk-up to a technical climb, and getting on one that's over your head is how a great day turns into a search-and-rescue call.

So I built a free tool to help. Answer 7 quick questions — your experience, how far you'll drive, how you feel about exposure, whether the dog's coming — and it matches you to the peaks that actually fit, with a link to the full route guide for each. It never suggests anything above the comfort level you set.

And if you've already bagged a few, you can check those off so you only see what's next.

Takes about 45 seconds. Give it a try and let me know what you think 👉 https://thenextsummit.org/which-14er-should-i-climb/

Safe travels out there.

06/10/2026

One detour around a snowfield, and a 74-year-old hiker in Colorado's Vasquez Peak Wilderness suddenly couldn't find the trail.

The good news: he stayed calm, climbed for a cell signal, called 911, and stayed put — and Grand County Search and Rescue walked him out by 10 p.m., unhurt.

It's the reminder this record-dry season needs: a low-snow year is not a no-snow year. The snow that's left clings to shaded, north-facing slopes — exactly where the trail gets hard to follow. "Looks melted out" doesn't mean "easy to follow."

I broke down what he did right, plus a simple stay-found checklist for early-season hikers:
https://thenextsummit.org/lost-hiker-vasquez-peak-wilderness/

Ever lost the trail crossing a snowfield? What got you back on track?

06/08/2026

We found this beast along Nellie Creek while climbing Uncompahgre Peak last weekend — taller than I am and pockmarked with holes like a giant sponge. 🤔

My first guess was that someone had taken a drill to it. Wrong. The real story is so much better.

This is volcanic spatter — geologists call it agglutinate. Picture a volcanic vent fountaining blobs of molten, taffy-like lava into the air. The gobs land while they're still soft, weld together into a lumpy heap, and trap pockets of gas and empty space as they harden. What you're looking at is, basically, a frozen splash from an ancient volcano. 🌋

Here's the part that stops me in my tracks: every peak in the San Juans is volcanic.

Not active volcanoes — the eroded skeletons of supervolcanoes that erupted around 30 million years ago. Uncompahgre is the highest surviving piece of that buried world. This boulder broke loose from an old lava flow above the creek and tumbled down to where we met it. And that rusty red color? That's iron in the rock slowly oxidizing — literally rusting — over millions of years.

It's also a quiet reminder of why San Juan rock has a reputation for being loose and crumbly. That same shattered, welded-together volcanic origin is exactly why these peaks ask for a little extra patience and care underfoot.

What's the strangest rock you've ever come across on a trail? Drop a photo in the comments — I'd love to see it. 👇

06/08/2026

This weekend I drove down to Lake City to climb Uncompahgre Peak with Jacob and Summit — and as usual, some of the best parts of the trip weren't at the top.

If you've made the drive up Henson Creek on the Alpine Loop toward the Nellie Creek trailhead, you've passed two broken dams sitting right in the canyon. Most people blow by them on the way to the peak. They're worth a stop.

Both belonged to the Ute-Ulay — the silver and lead mine that quite literally built Lake City back in the 1870s.

The upper one, right at the old mill, is the Ute-Ulay Dam. Poured in 1926: about 160 feet of reinforced concrete arched across the creek. Water ran from it through a long sheet-metal flume to a row of turbines that generated electricity for the mill. When the flume collapsed in 1951, the dam's working life was basically over.

The lower one is the real story. The Hidden Treasure Dam went up around 1890 — a masonry dam built to make hydroelectric power back when that was genuinely cutting-edge for a remote mountain mining camp. Then in 1973 it burst, sending a flood down Henson Creek and killing fish for 14 miles downstream as old mine chemicals washed out with the water. For decades afterward it just stood there with a gaping hole punched through its face.

It nearly had a second act in 2019. After that brutal avalanche winter, engineers realized debris could pile up behind the breach, pond a small lake, and then let go straight toward Lake City. So crews carefully blasted it down — lowering it and widening the gap — while deliberately saving part of the structure.

These ruins are protected and fragile, so admire them from the road. But do look. The peaks we climb are layered with human history, and knowing the story of the ground under your boots makes the whole trip richer.

Have you ever stopped at the Ute-Ulay on your way to Uncompahgre? What's the most surprising bit of history you've stumbled onto at a trailhead? 👇

06/06/2026

Driving down to Lake City, Colorado, I stopped and pulled over by this wayside for a minute, cause I’m a sucker for these signs.

Sagebrush environments are one of my favorites, and this part of the state is beautiful thanks to it. But they’re also a vital habitat for wildlife.

Now back on the road to Lake City!

Tomorrow, we're giving Uncompahgre Peak a second attempt at an ascent. But really, it's just an excuse to get back down here to one of my favorite mountain towns. 🏔️ ❤️