At 9 a.m., a cell phone rang at the trailhead with the celebratory declaration, "Tigers on top," the trip motto.
"The girls have been reunited with their father at the trailhead where their car was found".
(The trailhead, with parking for a half-dozen cars, is 0.2 miles east of Mile Marker 59).
After being outfitted in Jackson with black snowsuits, boots and helmets, we rode south in a van for 30 minutes to the trailhead with Jason Wright, our leader.
On arriving, she mingled with her nest mates and — an extraordinary event for ants — she and the others also mingled freely with some scouts from the Trailhead Colony.
As we laced up our boots at the trailhead, with Betsy already checking out the smells of the forest, we were told by a ranger to look out for bears, which had been bothering picnickers in the area.
In the early years of the studio, after Emery snapped the tourists at the trailhead with a 5-by-7 camera, he would hike 41/2 miles down the trail to Indian Garden, halfway to the canyon floor.
With 350 miles of routes connecting 31 huts, some a mere two or three miles from the trailhead — a few with amenities like wood-fired saunas, electricity and even flush toilets — the 10th Mountain huts are a fixture in Colorado, with few vacancies from January through March.
I like this analogy of the trailhead and starting with an idea.
There is no public transport available to or from the trailhead in Clonegal, with the closest bus routes serving the nearby villages of Kildavin and Bunclody, County Carlow.
