David Gray's video: Holy Cross Wilderness Colorado Backpacking - August 2016

In August 2016 our annual western backpacking trip took my son Christian and I, and our two labs Bailey and Jaden, to the Holy Cross Wilderness near Vail, Colorado. I've wanted to do a hike in this area since I started backpacking in 2010, but the lack of any multi-day 'true' loop hikes had always discouraged me. With a little research I found the 30-mile 4-day 'almost' loop hike that we ended up doing - the start and end trailheads (started at Half Moon Trailhead and ended at Cross Creek trailhead) were separated by 7 miles of rough forest road, but it ended up working out well. As you'll see in the video there was more 'drama' than usual on this trip. I left my camera bags at home and had to improvise, I left the map in the car during the first-day trailhead adventures, our mapping GPS temporarily died mid-trip, we briefly got 'off trail' (a.k.a. lost!) three different times, we experienced frequent rain and hail, and Bailey had both paw and digestive issues - thankfully nothing serious. For us, the Holy Cross Wilderness lived up to it's description as the 'Bermuda Triangle' of wildernesses. But, wow, it also more than lived up to it's reputation as one of the most beautiful wilderness areas. Similar to my other recent backpacking videos, this one is also roughly one hour in length with a 10 minute slide show at the end. It is meant to be an 'immersive' experience that allows you to come along with me on the trip. If I've done my job well you'll feel the vastness of the high plains and the length of the drive out, the stress of working through the separated trailhead situation, the thin air and steepness of the climbs to the passes, the hypothermic damp chill during a hailstorm, the strange comfort of sitting under a tarp in front of a warm fire during a thunderstorm, and the simple joy of a hot cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee in front of the fire in the morning. If you aren't interested in 'riding along on my shoulder' for an hour of video, just skip to the last 10 minutes of still pictures and you'll get a good overview of our trip. Still Camera: Nikon D700 with Nikkor 20mm f2.8 lens Video Camera: Canon Vixia G30 with Rode Stereo Videomic Pro Video Editing Software: Sony Vegas Pro 13 HDR Software: SNS-HDR Pro