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