Technically, this summer's "Mt. Elbert Experience" began on Sunday, August 17th. Realistically, it is a stretch to call 2:30 in the morning anything less than the end of Saturday August 18th, but that was in fact when we started loading up to head to the trail head. There were four of us going on this hike. Nicole had attempted Elbert previously but was unable to summit, so she was heading back to check it off her list. Jenny had never climbed a 14er, so this was her first experience with day long hike at high elevation. Kim has climbed a handful of 14ers but never as high as Mt. Elbert. And this would also be my first attempt at Mt. Elbert, and my 14th 14er summit overall.
The trail head is just past Leadville and is a good 2 1/2 hours from Longmont. In order to be up and heading back from the summit by around 11:00 before the usual afternoon storms pop up, plus with some expected delay from the Leadville 100 trail run finishing up that morning, I wanted to be heading out of Longmont by 3:00 AM to be on the trail by 6 AM. It turns out that we made very good time and hit no delays on the way in, so we were headed up the trail at 5:45 AM.
The temp out was 34 degrees when we started, so we all had a couple layers on and needed headlamps for the few minutes before the sun rose. Just a couple hundred yards past the trail head, we came to the intersection of the Colorado Trail and crossed over it to head into the woods.
I was surprised at how rough the trail looked so early on, and several trees had fallen across it. About a quarter mile in I was second guessing our path across the Colorado Trail. After double checking the route again, I realized that we should have turned left where we went straight. Just goes to show, never let the guy in the group be the navigator.
We turned around, hiked back down to the intersection and got headed in the right direction over a small creek after losing about 15 minutes. No big deal, and now the sun had started to rise so we could see things a little better.
I just learned about the Colorado Trail this year. It is a hiking trail made of many day-hikeable segments that runs from Littleton to Durango...hundreds of miles through some beautiful areas of Colorado. I would love to hike on some of it sometime, and this short mile stint on the way up to Elbert was the first time I had ever had the opportunity.
Eventually it split, with one section going up toward Elbert and the other continuing toward wherever the next Colorado Trail segment ended. Fortunately the sign at this intersection was impossible to miss, so we made the correct turn this time.
From here, we hiked another couple miles into the woods toward treeline. When we broke through that, we got our first real glimpse of our final destination....we thought.
As far as 14ers go, Elbert is considered one of the easier ones, but it is still a very strenuous hike. This area was not terribly steep, but once we got up toward the ridge, there were some areas that rose much more quickly.
Now I had heard that Elbert is full of false summits, but as this ridge looked SO prominent, I had hoped just a little that maybe it wouldn't be so bad. As we got closer, we began to notice that there wasn't anyone visible on this ridge, and even more ominous was that the line of people going up were skirting around the north side of the ridge and past it. We asked a couple of hikers coming down if that was it, and they confirmed that no, there were two more past this one. Lovely. It truly was pretty amazing at just how much further up the second false summit was past the first, considering how big it was. But alas, there it was, and we had to climb up over it as well, so up we went.
It was on this next uphill push that we crossed over 14,000 feet on our way up to 14,440. I had to get a picture of Jenny her first time over this elevation on foot.
Finally, on top of the second false summit, we could see our final destination, which thankfully did not involve much more elevation change.
There were at least 20 other people up there, and one thing I thought was unique about Elbert is that there are several other trails from all different directions that lead to it. None of those are particularly technical, so there seemed to be a steady stream of people coming and going up and down all sides of the summit while we were there.
The views from the op did not disappoint. To the southwest, just right of center in this picture, is La Plata Peak. The ridge that trails off to the left leads to South Elbert, another peak above 14K but without enough prominence from Elbert to be considered an "official" 14er.
More directly south, over South Elbert, Mt. Oxford, Mt. Belford and Missouri Mountain are the 3 highest points in the second "row" of peaks beyond S. Elbert, all left of center. Missouri Mountain is the tallest, widest peak about an eighth of the way across the picture from the right edge toward the back row of peaks. All are 14ers also in the Sawatch range.
To the north, Mt. Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado, was present from the moment we got above treeline all the way to the top. It is the tallest peak, just to the right of center. The other two slightly shorter peaks to the left, and the one just to the right, are all 14K sub peaks of Mt. Massive. It is very appropriately named.
And to the east, looking back over the route up over the false summits, is the town of Leadville, just right of center and a third of the way down from the top of the picture.
We were up on the summit for nearly an hour, taking in the scenery, talking among the others that were also up there today, taking pictures, and recovering for the hike back down. The weather was perfect and a little cool when the sun was behind the clouds and the breeze kicked up.
The official survey marker.
The crew on top of the rockies.
My 14th 14er summit.
The hike down, as is the case with most hikes, starts off rested and excited, and by the time you reach the last mile or two, when your legs are starting to get rubbery from the constant braking down the trail, you wonder time after time if the trail head is just around the next bend. Eventually we did make it back, at around 3:00, and we could all add Mt. Elbert, the highest point in Colorado, to our list of bagged summits. I enjoyed the opportunity to do this hike with Kim, Jenny and Nicole, and it was a privilege to be part of Jenny's first 14er summit and Nicole's Elbert redemption summit.
Phone was dying by the time we got to the summit, so this Runkeeper tracking is only for the way up. Notice at the beginning how we started up the wrong path and had to backtrack back down to the correct one.
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