A Couple Long Days - Harvard and Columbia

Harvard:

For the first time last night, I spent the night in my car at the trailhead by myself.

Not a bad setup for sleeping in the car

Obviously I want to make sure everyone knows that safely is my top priority here, so I had pepper spray handy throughout the night…just in case.  Of course, nothing happened and I was fine.  The weather forecast was calling for 30% chance of rain, which basically means it will rain.  Since you do not want to be stuck in lightning, I was glad to make it on the trail relatively early.  The trail starts out faily flat through the trees and crosses a river a couple times on bridges.

Once above treeline, I got a good glimpse of Harvard in the distance.

The hike from here crosses through some willows and streams.  After crossing this basin, the trail comes to some larger boulders.

At this point I could also see Columbia well.  My original plan was to try and hike the traverse between Harvard and Columbia, shown in the picture below.

However, as I made my way to the summit of Harvard, the clouds were starting to look a little problematic.  The traverse from Harvard to Columbia is pretty long and you need at least a couple hours to get to Columbia's summit, and then also some time to make your way back down the trail to treeline before any weather becomes an issue.  I was still just tracking the weather at this point though.  Once on the summit, there were a couple other people who had opted out of the Columbia traverse, worried about weather.  I decided to follow suit and also descend without attempting Columbia.

Some terrain getting closer to the summit

Just relaxing on the summit for a few minutes

It is hard to say if this maybe ended up being a conservative approach.  The weather seemed to hold out for a couple hours, so I might have been able to make it to the summit, but who knows.  I figure these are only 14ers and I have all summer, so no point in really pushing it if I am concerned (especially with others on the mountain turning back as well).  On my drive down from the trailhead, I came across an aspen tree that had fallen across the road.

Naturally, the first thought was to try and move it myself.  I made decent progress until the trunk of the tree became stuck against another tree along the road. With no cell service on the road, I was at a standstill.  But luckily some bikers came along and helped me move it out of the way.  May be time to get some chains or ropes to stow in my car in case I ever need to move something like this in the future.

Hike Summary
Date:	Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Mountain:	Mt. Harvard
Hike Start Time:	5:17 AM
Summit Time:	11:09 AM
Hike End Time:	2:35 PM
Miles:	14.40
Elevation Gain:	4,498

Columbia:

I dreaded this day.  Not Columbia per se, but the day that I feel simply like a peak bagger…checking the box…just getting the peak done….not having fun.  In fact, I feared this day more than the days when I just couldn't quite summit.  I was hoping there were not be such a day, but sadly there was.  In fairness, I probably started the day in need of an attitude adjustment.  I was kinda annoyed that I did not push it for the traverse the day before, especially since the weather seemed to hold out for a couple hours.  And then I started out on the trail, knowing that I did not remember seeing the turnoff from the main trail for Columbia.  For whatever reason, there was a bit of back-and-forth along the trail for me trying to find the turnoff.  I was expecting this turnoff to be 1/4 mile from a certain clearing at 11,050', however, after not finding it for a mile, I turned back.  Then after still not finding it, I turned back up and went about 1.5 miles to get to the turnoff. 

So this added to my frustration.  After a short hike through the trees, I came to a gully.

The trail just as it comes out of the trees

The gully....which I hated...

The route mentioned that the rock was loose, which was definitely true.  I was also not expecting a trail out of the gully until a little higher, but it seems there was one that started around 12,200'.  I was sadly in the gully until 12,700', wasting a lot of time with the 2-steps-forward-slide-1-step-back dance I seemed to be doing.  When I finally saw the trail to the right, I made my way over.  I saw a couple guys that I met the day before on Harvard and they seemed to have the same troubles through the gully.  I finally made it up to the ridge, where I knew there were a couple false summits until I made it over to the true summit.

The hike was easy from there.  I stayed on the summit for a few minutes and had some lunch.  A couple of marmots were pretty bold and coming up close to me (must be used to hikers since they didn't seem very skiddish).

I know I look a little weird in this photo, but was trying to get the marmot and me both in it before he ran away...and maybe I was a little nervous with how close it was getting (not that they are dangerous....)

The hike down was still pretty slow going through that trial/gully given all the loose rock.  But despite by bad attitude, I still do love being on the top of a mountain!  Glad this one is checked off the list, but I do think if I ever do it again I would opt for a very early morning start to ensure I can do the traverse from Harvard.

Hike Summary
Date:	Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Mountain:	Mt. Columbia
Hike Start Time:	6:16 AM
Summit Time:	12:16 PM
Hike End Time:	3:54 PM
Miles:	13.69
Elevation Gain:	4,077

Huron

The 3 AM wake up call today was tough.  For some reason just can't quite seem to get in bed early enough when you are going to have to wake up at 3 AM.  But I made it out the door shortly after 3:30 AM as planned for the almost 3 hour drive to Huron's trailhead.  The 4WD road to this one got along with me much better than Antero's, and I made it safely to the upper trailhead for an expected departure around 7 AM.  The trail on Huron is well marked and started in the trees.

As I came to about treeline, I met another solo hiker named Cody, who ended up doing the rest of the hike up and back with me.  He had just moved to Colorado last summer but has already found he loves the 14ers:)  This trail seems to pretty much move uphill at all times, without any flat areas for rests.  But there are a good number of switchbacks, both in the trees and above treeline through the basin.

The toughest part of this hike is definitely the last 1/4 mile, where you gain 550' of elevation quickly.

But as always, the views from the summit are awesome and, as Cody put it, never get old!  Hopefully he and I can hike together again later this season.

Hike Summary
Date:	Monday, July 1, 2013
Mountain:	Huron Peak
Hike Start Time:	7:01 AM
Summit Time:	9:56 AM
Hike End Time:	11:51 AM
Miles:	7.08
Elevation Gain:	3,474

Attempt 1 On Antero

I knew this day would come eventually….the day I plan to summit and don't quite make it.  My dad and I set out for Antero today with intentions of taking my car to the upper trailhead just below 12,000', which would have made for a total hike of just under 7 miles and only 2,200' of elevation gain.  Shortly after starting up the 4WD road, we hit a couple spots which were a little difficult to get around.  Not knowing if it was going to get worse or get better even if we did power through, we decided to just go ahead and park the car and start the hike.

Where we parked the car to start up the trail.

This put us at a starting elevation of 9,700'.  As we walked up the road, we realized that we definitely could have made it farther, but decided to just continue on.  We made it to a stream at ~ 10,850' after about 2.5 miles of hiking.

The majority of the "trail" up Antero is actually these large ATV roads, so we saw a handful of other people heading up on ATVs/Jeeps.

Unfortunately the road is not terribly interesting, but the conversation with my dad is always great so I didn't mind.  As we continued to make our way along the road, the clouds started to worry us a bit.

We knew there was a chance of rain (as there is pretty much any day on a 14er) and decided the last 800' was not quite worth the risk.  If we had been able to make it to the upper trailhead, we would have had plenty of time to summit (or, rather, had we known we were going for a 14 mile hike instead of a 7 mile hike, we might have started earlier to beat the weather).  Within 15 minutes of turning back, we were hearing some loud claps of thunder and by the time we made it back to the car, we had been rained on quite a bit and the storm was intensifying.  So we felt good about the decision, but a little bummed we didn't make it to the summit.  I'll have to work that one into the schedule a little later this summer.  We will definitely drive up father the next time around (and I have also put in a vote for renting ATVs to get us back to 13,600' since we already made it that far and then just hiking from there.....only kidding....mostly).  Always a tough pill to swallow when you hike 14 miles and gain 4,000' and don't summit, but like I said, my dad and I always have a great time together.  Looking forward to my next hike on the agenda with him (Kit Carson/Challenger Point).

Hike Summary
Date:	Friday, June 27, 2013
Mountain:	Mt. Antero
Hike Start Time:	6:22 AM
Summit Time:	N/A
Hike End Time:	3:18 PM
Miles:	14.24
Elevation Gain:	3,933

Princeton

After having a hiking buddy for the past couple days, Princeton did not start out quite as fun on my own.  But I did meet a family (dad and 3 kids) that were starting to hike right around the time I was so we chatted for a bit at the start.  Turns out I probably could have made it a little farther up the 4WD road, but I was just uncertain of where there would be space to park/turnaround.  So the hike started up the remainder of the 4WD road.

I'm a little squinty in this picture...but it was a good first view of the summit in the background. 

After a short distance on the road, the trail turned off to the right where I was already above treeline.  The slope seemed pretty gradual across the side of the mountain, mostly hopping from rock to rock.

The trail turned up to the left where it got a little steeper to reach the ridge.  Once on the ridge, the basic direction to the summit is clear...the trail, on the other hand, seemed difficult to follow.

This section of the climb could easily be nicknamed cairn chaos. At times there were cairns all over the place that did not seem to streamline nicely with each other, and at other times there didn't seem to be a cairn in sight.  But given that the summit is in full view, I guess the main decision was just to move up and over.

Another nickname that might be good is Charlotte's Web....there were spider webs and spiders on at least 75% of the rocks I was walking over.  Oh well, the weather was great the whole way.  No wind and very warm.

My tanlines are pretty substantial by now, which makes for a pretty interesting sight when I am not wearing my hiking clothes/socks haha!  Made it back to the car and headed down the road and back to Denver.  At this point I am up to 7 summits this year and 16 total (plus Cameron)!!

Hike Summary
Date:	Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Mountain:	Mt. Princeton
Hike Start Time:	8:01 AM
Summit Time:	11:11 AM
Hike End Time:	1:52 PM
Miles:	7.89
Elevation Gain:	3,366

One Of My Favorites - Yale

Despite our best intentions, we sill didn't make it to the trail for Mt. Yale until a little later.  Luckily the weather was really not a concern so we knew we would have plenty of time to summit.

Keith, Buddy, and I made our way along the trail, which is really nicely maintained on Yale.  Easy to follow and nice scenery.  We made it above 12,000' and stopped for a snack.  But unfortunately we noticed Buddy had a cut on his paw.  He was moving slower today than yesterday but not substantially so we were not too concerned.  We bandaged it up and continued just a little farther before deciding that it was not going to be good to have Buddy continue on to the summit.  So we parted ways and I continued on while Keith tended to Buddy on the way down.

Poor Buddy....this is when we realized his foot was not holding up :(

The trail continued to be really nice all the way up.

On the ridge before the final pitch, the wind started blowing pretty strongly.  Almost took my breath away for a second.

The last bit of the climb is shown here.

But once on the summit it died down and I stopped for a bit for some lunch.

The trip down was nice.  Once I made it back to my car I had a note from Keith that Buddy and him made it safely down, which calmed my nerves a little bit since I was worried pretty much the whole way down.  This hike/trail was really nice and I would definitely recommend it to others interested in some intro 14ers.  So that is why it is one of my new favorites :)

Hike Summary
Date:	Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Mountain:	Mt. Yale
Hike Start Time:	8:03 AM
Summit Time:	12:30 PM
Hike End Time:	3:15 PM
Miles:	9.93
Elevation Gain:	4,247

La Plata

On to week 2!  Today is the first day I will have a hiking buddy.  I met a guy named Keith at a 14ers.com happy hour and he had a couple Sawatch mountains on his list to check off so he planned to join me for La Plata and Yale.  We met at the trailhead and headed out, along with his super cute rhodesian ridgeback, Buddy.  The trail followed a small river for some time while we were in the trees.

But soon we got above treeline and to some switchbacks through a steeper gully.

We figured that Buddy must be going about double the distance we were traveling due to the fact that he would run way ahead and chase marmots and then come back to meet us.

Keith is definitely a speedier hiker than me, but was gracious to wait for me to catch up.  As the trail lead to larger boulders, cairns led the way pretty well all the way to the summit.

There was a bit of wind today, similar to last week but nothing too bad.  We hung out at the summit for a little bit and had a snack before making our way back down.  About half way down and heading back into the trees, Buddy was starting to slow down a bit and was just exhausted by the time we made it back to the car.  But hiking with him (Buddy) made me super excited to hike with Summit, my golden retriever, once he is old enough (likely next summer).  After a celebratory beer at Twin Lakes, we made our way to a campsite in Buena Vista where we would stay the night.  We actually camped right by the Arkansas River, where I used to whitewater raft as a kid, so that was fun!  And even though the moon was not technically full, it was still super big and bright.  I also got to try out sleeping in the back of my new Xterra, which worked out really well:)

Keith and me...almost down

Pretty cool water fall we saw (tried to capture in the picture with Keith and me above....but clearly my aim is not that great for the selfie pic)

I couldn't resist adding a picture of Summit....but can you blame me?  He is just so darn cute!

Hike Summary
Date:	Monday, June 24, 2013
Mountain:	La Plata Peak
Hike Start Time:	8:14 AM
Summit Time:	12:55 PM
Hike End Time:	3:51 PM
Miles:	10.32
Elevation Gain:	4,171