"What should have been a short, easy hike turned into a pretty scary situation here. As I left the car, visibility wasn’t really an issue, though the wind was picking up a bit. After reaching mines and starting to cross over towards Flora, the wind and snowdrifts started to get pretty intense. By the time I reached the false summit, I was in almost complete whiteout, with a visibilty of roughly 20 feet. Luckily I knew where I was heading and the hiking wasn’t technical, though miscropikes helped a great deal. Occasionally I post holed through the snowdrifts. As soon as I reached the summit I turned around, which is when conditions got even worse. At a few points I couldn’t see more than 10 feet in any direction, and the wind and snowdrifts were crippling to walk against. A few times the cover broke, and I was able to snap a few pics. Below 12,600’ the route became more clear, though the wind was still ferocious. I can’t believe I experienced this on Mt. Flora in October! It is good to be humbled once in a while. " — LGH-Dan • Oct 21, 2017

"Had a late start to the day, but got to Berthoud pass around 11:30am. Went up the maintenance road to Mines, then down the ridge and met up with the CDT. Ran into two skiers at this point who were apparently going to descend the northwest slopes of Flora. Didn’t see anyone else the entire day! I couldn’t believe it since the parking lot was full and it was a Sunday. Made it over to Flora by 2pm and descended the fairly steep ridge between Flora and Eva. Managed to summit Eva around 3:30pm. Once there I had thought of doing Parry as well, but after looking at how steep the traverse would be and also that I only had 2 hours of daylight, I decided to do it another day. Conditions were beautiful, sunny all day and breezy, but not bad at all. Probably in the twenties. My water was starting to freeze by late afternoon. Didn’t need snowshoes or micro spikes, pretty much everything above tree line was windswept. The views were awesome of the Front Range. Got back to the car around 6:30pm for a 6 HR 11.7 mile RT. Guess I’ll have to do James, Bancroft and Parry another time. " — tylerburg • Feb 28, 2016

"Looking for a good summer warm-up hike, I decided to hit Berthoud Pass and the CDT. From the parking lot, I summited Colorado Mines Peak, Mt. Flora, and Mt. Eva. The round trip was roughly 11 miles, 3,800' vertical gain, and took about seven hours." — WaxDr • Jun 19, 2013