On April 19th, 2008 my buddy,
Dwight, and I try to ascend the highest peak in Colorado while it is still covered in snow. This will be the second snow covered ascent of this mountain in two years. We failed to summit last year and hope this year will bring better luck. This picture is taken from highway 24, south of Leadville, as we approach the trailhead.
Blue sky and temperatures in the low thirties greet us at the trailhead. We arrive at the trailhead around 7 AM. This year we decide to hike the east ridge to the summit. Last year we hiked the southern face and it proved to be a bit too much with the snow. This year's route looked longer, but has a much more gradual pitch.
Spirits are high as we we prepare to begin our hike. Mount Elbert can be seen directly behind us.
The first portion of the trail walks through aspen groves.
At this point in the hike we are walking on unimproved dirt road. The temperatures will be so warm today that when we return from our hike this same section of trail will only have a small section of road covered in snow. Making for a beautiful hike up through the aspen and a very wet descent down through the mud.
Having hiked Mt. Bierstadt only a month before and knowing how cold it was when we started hiking that mountain we prepared ourselves for the cold. However, the day proved to be so nice that we had to stop soon after our start to shed a few layers.
The scenery was amazing.
We had an early start and the top layer of snow was still frozen, which allowed us to walk on top of the snow without snow shoes. I was walking on three feet of snow as I traveled across this meadow. I know that because on the way down this meadow had melted and we sunk deep into the snow on several occasions; even while wearing our snow shoes.
Morning sun penetrates the trees.
Dwight in high spirits with Mount Elbert seen as the right most peak in the distance. Only a mile into our hike; we still have a lot of hiking before we get to the summit.
We got off course and ended up on part of the Colorado Trail, which intersects with the Mount Elbert trail. This old bridge on the Colorado Trail had seen better days. If the angle of the bridge didn't keep you off; the nine inch rusty nails that stuck out of it would. I walked around, but I dared Dwight to cross it.
I'm all smiles in this photo, but five minutes earlier I was turning the sky blue with profanities. Up to this point I hadn't been wearing snow shoes and as we got deeper into the trees the snow got less stable and I started to fall through the snow a lot. But after I put on my snow shoes all was good.
The plan was to hike through this last bit of snow and then we would be able to hike the ridge which as you can see in this picture didn't have any snow. We would then take off our snow shoes in hope that it would save us some time.
At this point we are around 12,500 feet and the wind is whistling. Plus, the clock tells us it is already noon. There is still a lot of mountain between us and the summit and we have a turn around time of 1 PM.
Windy, Cold, Tired, and two hundred vertical feet from the summit we call it a day. We turn around at 14,200 feet and forty minutes past our turn around time. Knowing the mountain will be here to hike another day we decided to take a few photos and head back to the car, which is over six miles away.
Dwight and I reflect on our decision to turn around as we take a short break and get some food in our stomach before we make the final push back to the car. With a shortage of food and water, and an equipment failure still to come I'm certain we made a good choice to turn around when we did.
Notice how he is standing on the snow? Dwight isn't a short guy. He has about three feet of leg above the snow at this point.
