Long Round Trip on Pikes Peak

So….already a little behind with keeping up with the blog!  I'll try to be better once I get caught up:)  Pikes Peak was on the agenda today and it was the first longer hike of my sabbatical.  The day started early around 6:30 am.  The trail was nice, starting through the trees.

After making my way up through a clearing, the trail headed to Devil's Playground.

The entrance to Devil's Playground.

After passing through Devil's Playground, the trail passed by the paved road that leads up to the summit (yes, you can drive to the summit).  The trail actually ended up coming near the road a couple other times as I made my way up.  The final portion of the trail took me through some larger boulders, which is pretty normal on these mountains.

Making my way to the top.

The trail became a little harder to find from here...so the main goal was just to hike up.

The first view of the summit is somewhat disappointing....given that I had just hiked 4 hours and there were about 100 people up there that had just driven 20 minutes to be in the same place!  I spent a little time at the summit wondering through the gift shop and seeing all the views.  Definitely a different experience than most summits I have been on.

Parking at the summit, for all the non-hikers.

It was also at this time I realized I am still having problems with my Garmin eTrex.  It said that I had walked uphill 27 miles in the past 4 hours, which was clearly not true.  So I decided to give the Garmin a nickname...Sharptooth.  For those of you that don't know, Sharptooth is the name of the t-rex in Land Before Time.  Seemed fitting since Sharptooth (the t-rex) was super mean and annoying, and my Garmin was also now being super mean/annoying.  Plus the Garmin already has "t-rex" in its name (if Sharptooth ever decides to start working better, the nickname will likely change....to Chomper, the nice little t-rex in later Land Before Time shows).  I reset Sharptooth and made my way for the bottom.  The descent on this one seemed to take a long time since the trail had quite a bit of vertical distance to cover.  But all-in-all, another great day on the mountain.

Almost back to the car!

Hike Summary
Date:	Friday, June 21, 2013
Mountain:	Pikes Peak
Hike Start Time:	6:37 AM
Summit Time:	10:48 AM
Hike End Time:	2:41 PM
Miles:	13.80
Elevation Gain (feet):	4,022

Sherman - More Interesting Than Expected

Staying in Fairplay made for a much later morning today, up around 5:30 am.  Still on the trail by about 7:00 am as planned.  Mt. Sherman was not necessarily one I was looking forward to, mostly because it doesn't seem like one of the real "pretty" peaks.  However, ended up being a pretty good day.  There are a handful of trails all around Sherman and I quickly got a little off course (if you are paying attention, no reason to miss the main trail...guess I was too wrapped up in the sermon I was listening to haha).  Anyway, this got me up to a slope of pretty loose rock which I had to traverse across/backtrack to get to the main trail.

I picked the trail back up a little above the saddle between Sherman and Sheridan, where I met up with a nice guy named Paul who was visiting from Georgia and trying to get another 14er under his belt.  The rest of the hike was pretty windy along the ridge, but luckily the air quality didn't seem to be too impacted by the nearby wild fires.

The trail leading to the summit.

The summit came quickly (again, after some confusing mix of trails).

Me at the summit.

Nice views along the trail.

Then on to the descent.  In my mix up earlier, I ended up missing a decently long patch of snow that I did not have to ascend, however I was now faced with getting down it to stay on the main trail down.  I put on my microspikes and attempted to climb down backwards, but after about 2 slippery steps, realized that was not going to work.  So I turned around and opted for glisading down...probably should have changed into pants, but was kinda stuck on the side of a mountain.  So, ya...ended up with a little burn on the back of my legs from the ice, but not a huge deal.  Descended a good amount of elevation quickly!

Hard to tell relative size of this slope...but here is the bottom of the snow patch I glisaded down.

After returning to my car and heading out, I had a pretty cool bear sighting!  I was driving along the dirt road with a river to the right and a slope up to my left.  This bear was down by the river and then shot across the road and up the slope!  I have seen a handful of wild animals before, but never a bear, so that was pretty cool.  Sadly I did not have my camera in hand/ready so missed the photo opportunity, maybe next time!

As you can tell from my Hike Summary below, I have figured out some of the functionality of the Garmin eTrex, so the stats are a little more specific:)

Hike Summary
Date:	Thursday, June 20, 2013
Mountain:	Mt. Sherman
Hike Start Time:	7:12 AM
Summit Time:	9:13 AM
Hike End Time:	10:42 AM
Miles:	4.82
Elevation Gain:	1,998

The Decalibron (less Democrat)

Day 1...3:30 am....time to wake up, pack the car, and hit the road!  Thus my life as a mountain girl starts.  The plan for the day is to tackle the Decalibron (less Democrat).  For those who do not know, the Decalibron is made up for 4 mountains in the Mosquito Range, Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross, traditionally hiked in that order (take the first couple/few letters of each to get "Decalibron").  I already did Democrat last year with my old roomie Kristen who was visiting from Chicago, so bypassed it this time around.

The hike up Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross was successful!  Day started as planned around 7 AM.  Luckily the drive to the trailhead was clear/dry.  Some of the trail was under water, and the exposed rocks to get across were still covered in ice that early in the morning, so I had to get a little creative to get across a couple streams.  Nothing too concerning though.  

There were sections of the trail still covered in snow, but I made it across without putting microspikes on.

As I reached the saddle between Democrat and Cameron, the wind started to pick up.  Despite some wind, the weather was great all morning.  The trails to Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross were all pretty solid and easy to follow.  Here is the trail up to Cameron:

And the view from the top of Cameron, looking over to Lincoln:

The marker at Lincoln's summit, and some great views:

The most difficult part of the hike was the descent from Bross.  Mt. Bross is actually technically closed, so the trails are not super well kept at the moment.  There was a bit of loose rock and some steep portions.  But here I am all smiles trying to navigate down:

Getting back to the trailhead, the day had turned pretty warm, so it was nice to enjoy the rest of the day in Fairplay.

Just a note on the Hike Summary, I am still trying to learn how to use my Garmin eTrex so hopefully I will get a little more specific with my route stats once I figure that out.  Not sure if anyone has one, but for some reason I am having a hard time trying to figure out this super-un-user-friendly device.  Let me know if anyone has some tips (mostly interested in learning how to "start" and "stop" the tracks....since as of now even when I reset it, it tracks all miles cumulatively....hmmmmmm...oh ya, and how to load my maps onto it, as the approach explained by Garmin via its online videos is not working).  Anyway, great start to my sabbatical.

Hike Summary
Date:	Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Mountain:	Cameron, Lincoln, Bross
Hike Start Time:	7:00 AM
Summit Time:	Cameron - 9:00 AM Lincoln - 9:25 AM Bross - 10:30 AM
Hike End Time:	12:00 PM
Miles:	6.00
Elevation Gain:	3,000

An Intro to My Summer Sabbatical....From the Summits

Hello friends –

As some of you know, I will be taking a sabbatical from work starting June 14, 2013 to October 7, 2013.  During this time, I hope to climb a bunch of 14,000’ mountains (“14ers”) here in Colorado.  I have already summited 9 of the official 54[1] peaks, so the general goal would be to climb the rest.  But first and foremost, the goal is to have fun, be safe, and recharge while doing something I love.  If that results in climbing all the remaining 14ers…great! 

I will be tracking some of my progress here on this blog, so feel free to follow along with me.  I am mostly keeping this blog for myself, so I can memorialize the adventures (the good, the bad, and the ugly), but I know some of you are interested in hearing those stories as well.

As for the schedule, I expect it will change from my initial plan depending on weather and how I feel, but the general plan is to hike 3-4 days a week.  I have included a rough itinerary below of when I plan to do which peaks.  Definitely let me know if any of you would like to join me on one of them (even if the date I have listed doesn’t work since most of them are weekdays, I am flexible to change it to another dayJ).

Also, for those of you who are interested in the technical stuff, just an FYI that I will not be following the “Colorado Rule”.  The “Colorado Rule” has been established as a standard to measure completing a peak, especially for those that are working against, say, a record.  The rule states a climber must ascend at least 3,000 (net) vertical feet on foot from the base of the first peak in a series, and descend at least 3,000 feet at the end of the series. But the climber can traverse between peaks in the series without descending 3,000 feet for each.  This means that, at times, a climber would have to start below a standard trailhead in order to gain the appropriate amount of elevation for the peak to “count”.  Anyway….I don’t really care about that.  My approach will be to hike from the standard trailheads (mostly).  Again, I am doing this more for fun than anything elseJ

So, here goes nothing.  Thanks for everyone’s support and encouragement, and I hope to see you on the trail!

Tentative Schedule

Date	Mountain(s)
Wednesday, June 19, 2013	Mt. Lincoln Mt. Cameron Mt. Bross
Thursday, June 20, 2013	Mt. Sherman
Friday, June 21, 2013	Pikes Peak
Monday, June 24, 2013	Mt. Antero
Tuesday, June 25, 2013	Mt. Princeton
Wednesday, June 26, 2013	Mt. Yale
Friday, June 28, 2013	La Plata Peak
Sunday, June 30, 2013	Missouri Mountain
Monday, July 1, 2013	Mt. Harvard Mt. Columbia
Tuesday, July 2, 2013	Huron Peak
Sunday, July 7, 2013	Mt. Elbert
Monday, July 8, 2013	Culebra Peak
Tuesday, July 9, 2013	Humboldt Peak
Friday, July 12 – Saturday, July 13, 2013	Challenger Point Kit Carson
Tuesday, July 16, 2013	Mt. of the Holy Cross
Wednesday, July 17 – July 18, 2013	Snowmass Mountain
Monday, July 22 – July 23, 2013	Capitol Peak
Thursday, July 25, 2013	Castle Peak Conundrum Peak
Saturday, July 27, 2013	Mt. Massive
Tuesday, July 30, 2013	Pyramid Peak
Wednesday, July 31, 2013	Redcloud Peak Sunshine Peak
Thursday, August 1, 2013	Handies Peak
Friday, August 2, 2013	Uncompahgre Peak
Sunday, August 4, 2013	Wilson Peak
Monday, August 5, 2013	Wetterhorn Peak
Tuesday, August 6, 2013	Mt. Sneffels
Wednesday, August 7, 2013	San Luis Peak
Saturday, August 10, 2013	Mt. Lindsey
Sunday, August 11, 2013	Ellingwood Point Blanca Peak
Tuesday, August 13 – August 14, 2013	Sunlight Peak
Thursday, August 15, 2013	Mt. Eolus North Eolus
Friday, August 16, 2013	Windom Peak
Monday, August 19, 2013	Mt. Wilson El Diente Peak
Thursday, August 22, 2013	Little Bear
Friday, August 23, 2013	Crestone Peak Crestone Needle
Tuesday, August 27, 2013	Tabeguache Peak
Wednesday, September 4, 2013	Mt. Belford Mt. Oxford
Friday, September 6, 2013	Maroon Peak
Monday, September 9, 2013	North Maroon Peak

[1] Note that some lists have 53 peaks and others have 55 peaks as “official” 14ers in Colorado.