In the last month since I've finished my sophomore year at CU Boulder, I've averaged well over forty hours per week at my old seasonal job as a raft-photographer on Clear Creek in Idaho Springs, CO. And during those many hours on the riverside, waiting for rafts to come by, I've successfully entertained myself between 14ers.com and NOAA's hourly weather forecast.
With three fourteeners and one thirteener in the books, I'd like to say that I'm beginning to understand what is known as the "peak addiction". I may be freshly naming this addiction myself, but it is not an unknown problem amongst mountain-lovers. Lately, it's something I've noticed among my friends and the thousands of people that obsessively check the 14ers.com website and Facebook page. But I've got a long ways to go. 55 to be exact (or debatable, depending on whether you count Cameron, South Elbert, North Snowmass, etc).
Yesterday, June 10th, Katherine Feldmann (or just "Feldmann" to avoid Katherine-confusion), a friend from Boulder, and I had a plan to complete Mount Elbert (14,433 feet) which is the tallest peak in Colorado and the second tallest in the continental United States. She picked me up from work in Idaho Springs late Saturday night, and we drove out to Leadville to camp and rise early the next morning.
I was, as usual, in awe falling asleep under a clear Milky Way and was stoked the next morning as we packed up camp and made our way to the mountains. But I was in for a surprise. We weren't doing the standard route up Mount Elbert that I had researched online, we were doing a much less-travelled route to the summit— the Southeast Ridge, Class 2. I was instantly more excited when on the way to the trailhead during the sunrise, Feldmann said, "anything but the standard route". This would make our day much more interesting.
We started up through the trees, crossed a stream a few times, and eventually came to a break in the trees in a valley. Dozens of peaks came into view behind us, we kept stopping to admire the view and were bothered by no other hikers. We continued up the steep slope above tree-line and finally made it to the beginning of our ridge that we would follow to the summit. From here, the trail faded in and out between the tundra and loose rock but we quickly made it to South Elbert peak, 14,134 feet, a point along Elbert's Southeast Ridge, but not considered an actual fourteener since it lacks 300 feet of vertical prominence. Still pretty cool by my standards.
On the final stretch along the ridge between South Elbert and Elbert, the wind was torturous. Every two minutes or so, a 40 mph gust would throw us sideways and distort our balance as we maneuvered over the talus-covered ridge. Luckily, the ridge was wide enough that we weren't too close to a dropoff, but we still hid behind small piles of rocks every few minutes to let the gusts pass.
And finally, we summited. It's hard to beat the feeling of standing on top of a mountain. After likely enduring several hours of physical labor and mental endurance, standing on top of a mountain is one hell of a reward. And extremely addicting.
With views of the Sawatch and Elk ranges all around us and a few dozen people who all came up the standard route, we felt a little extra-special for making our way to the top of Colorado in a non-traditional format. I know Feldmann already contains this peak addiction, I hope she's ready for my company for the summer, because this is only the beginning.