Mt. Bierstadt

Today was kind of a cool day for me.  After living in Colorado for 11 years (plus another 4 1/2 in college), I finally managed to climb my first 14er, Mt. Bierstadt.  Sure, I've driven to the top of Evans and Pikes, and I've looked admiringly at dozens of others from the air conditioned comfort of my car as I drove past them, but I've never actually hiked up one and done it "right".  So just a couple of days ago, Kathy (knowing I wanted, no NEEDED, to do some higher altitude training before my 10K MS Mud Run in Winter Park) said that she could take care of things at the house if I wanted to go hiking Sunday.  Of course, I jumped right from "a high altitude hike" to "hey, I want to climb a 14er!".  I was planning to do Greys and Torreys, but a couple of my kickboxing students with some 14er experience told me that Bierstadt is a good first time hike.  I LOVE the view up at Guanella Pass, and Bierstadt is one of the 14ers I've looked at from my car many times, so I decided that Bierstadt it would be.

Having never done a big hike like this, I wasn't exactly sure what I should bring with me, so I did a little online research.  Water...check.  More water...check.  Had my new hiking boots that I'm still breaking in (this could have been a disaster, but fortunately worked out ok).  GPS....check.  Helmet....wait, what???  Seriously, I need a helmet for this climb?  Guess I'll have to risk it, as I'm not going to wear my bike helmet up a mountain (and this was the right decision...no one was wearing a helmet today).  Flares...ummm, huh????  I could see my car the entire way up the mountain today.  There was not one time that I was more than 100 feet from SOMEBODY.  Needless to say, I had no occasion to use my flares today, thank God (unless of course the idea was to shoot them off at the summit like fireworks, but no one else was doing that so I will just assume they would be for more isolated hikes).  I had on shorts (nice 55 degree morning at the pass), a light long sleeve shirt, a fleece, and I had packed a windbreaker and some windbreaking pants (neither of which I needed, but they seemed like reasonable additions).  Also brought lots of Goo and some energy bars (which I used extensively).  In hindsight, I wish I had brought a pair of gloves because it was a little windy and cooler at the summit, which made it a little tougher to scramble over the rocks up there.  But other than that, I think I packed about right.  

I got on the road about 5:30 this morning, which itself was a complete miracle considering the small celebratory gathering I attended last night.  Got up to Guanella Pass, parked in the overflow lot, and got on the trail by 7:30.  Other than being tired from lack of sleep, I felt good, and Bierstadt didn't look all THAT far away.  Big, yes, but there it was, right in front of me.  Only a mere 3.5 miles away.  And another 1/2 mile straight up.

I won't go into details about every step of the hike...there are all kinds of blogs and descriptions from other climbers that pretty much sums that up.  So this is my own personal take of it....

The hike starts going down into a valley of willows.  Very cool.  Also very good at lulling you into feeling "wow, this won't be so bad".  Ummm...WRONG.

Shortly into the hike, you cross over a stream on some stepping stones.  This is what it looks like:

This wouldn't have been a big deal (I actually really love mountain streams like this...very serene for me), except that my expert mountaineering friend told me that when she hiked Bierstadt, she slipped on this crossing and had to do the rest of the hike with a wet shoe.  Fortunately, I made it across both times (the woman in front of me on the descent wasn't so lucky).

I think I was towards the end of the first "wave" of climbers that day.  Only a very small handful of people were coming down as I went up, but I passed hundreds of people in the first mile of my initial descent from the summit.  It was busy, but I didn't ever feel like I was "crowded", and only had to stop a couple times to let people come past or let me move past them. 

This was pretty typical the whole way.  There were maybe 25-30 people at the summit when I got there and a lot more on the way up when I left.  When I got back to the parking lot, both lots were filled and there was a long line of cars parked on both sides of the road.  7-7:30 was just about the perfect time to get going apparently.

The people hiking at that time of day are very friendly.  I talked to a few people for awhile on the way up...very friendly people, all of them.  And for those of us who were climbing our very first 14er, everyone really responded to us in an honest "way to go" manner, and not in a condescending or "oh I've climbed FIFTY of them" way.  Very refreshing to be around that.  And several people had some very cool dogs with them too.  I imagine if I brought Bella, she'd be half way across Colorado by now.

I made it up in about 2 1/2 hours, and back down in about 2 hours after 15-20 minutes on the summit.

I wasn't nearly the slowest going up, although I did have to stop more frequently than I thought I would on some of the steeper parts.  As I got back to the car, it occurred to me that Longs Peak is twice as long as this one.  I'd love to have a go at Longs someday, but the timing is going to have to be right, and it would be good to get a few more easier ones under my belt first.  Similar to my half marathon and not planning to become a distance runner, I don't think climbing 14ers is something I will ever get hooked on for many reasons.  I'm glad I did this one, and there are some others I'd like to climb in the future, but I'm not going to plan weekly climbs and try to bag every 14er in CO.  But today couldn't have gone any smoother, and it was great practice for the 10K fundraiser in a couple of weeks.