Mt Elbert

I found my trip report from Elbert, so I thought I should post it here. I stole the pictures from the Internet, I did not have a digital camera at the time. I noticed that I have CO as being climbed with someone, but in fact it was just me.

Well, as to me, I'm doing great and I have one more highpoint under my belt. I climbed Colorado's highpoint, Mt. Elbert - 14,433 feet. This is by far the highest highpoint that I have concurred, or the highest mountain for that mater. The next highest highpoint is Arizona's at only 12,600 feet, almost 2,000 feet lower. The hike up Elbert is a "walk up", meaning that it takes no skill to climb to the top. The only thing it takes is endurance and a strong cardiovascular system. The hike or walk is only five miles each way, with about a mile elevation gain from the trail head to the summit. I did have some difficulties getting up this one, not because I was sick but because I was just tired. I only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before because I arrived into Denver so late and I had to drive to the base of Elbert. I think it is about a 4 hour drive, but when you’re tired and trying to drive through moose infested forests at night, it’s hard to keep track of such information as how long it takes to drive to Mt Elbert. It’s not much fun to drive there in the middle of the night on a road that wonders through the forest. I eventually gave up driving all the way there and stopped at a rest area at about 2:00 am and slept in the car for the night. Just me and the truck drivers sleeping in rest area 222. I know that rest areas are not the safest places to sleep, but I have done it many times before and I’m sure that I will keep doing it. One time while I was on a biking trip, my brother and I slept right on the picnic tables in our sleeping bags at a rest area. As a mater of fact I have only had one problem with sleeping in a rest area all my life. And that was only a problem with a state police officer in ND, and once I talked to him, all was wonderful in the world. But you will have to read more about that when I post ND summit information.

The next morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over a mountain lake with 14,000 foot peaks surrounding it. What a site to wake up to!! After getting out of the car and stretching, I was off to find Mt. Elbert. Like most of the western highpoints the summit is easy to find, but the trail head is hidden with no markers to help you find it. I drove around and around for over two hours looking for the trail head. I stop three times and asked for directions, but the first two sets of directions were worthless. It was not until the last set when I was all most there, did I get good directions. I don’t think that there are many more things more frustrating then bad directions. Especially when you can see the mountain the whole time you are looking for the trail head. Once I did find it, there were no parking spots to be found. I drove around for about 15 minutes looking for a place to park, finally giving up and parking next to a fence behind a car with a car behind me and a horse trailer to the side of me. I just barely fit and if any of the other cars had left and a new care parked to close to me while I was up on the mountain I would have been stuck until they came back. Needless to say the parking lot was full. After slipping out the window (the horse trailer was to close to open the door), I started up the trail. The trail is an old Jeep path about 3.5 miles of the hike. The trail head is at about 9,500 feet with the grade evenly spread out over the Jeep road portion of the trail. It really is like walking on a road most of the way up. I did not even stop until the tree line at about 12,000 feet; I had a snack at about 500 feet above the tree line. About another mile up the trail I had to stop and rest because the trail had become steeper and the air was getting thinner. After about a fifteen-minute rest I continued up the trail for about another 1000 feet. At that point I laid down and took a 45 minute nap. After waking up from the nap I was able to continue to the top. What a view up there, I was able to see over 30 peaks that were over 14,000 feet high. When you are standing there it does not appear that you are that high at all because the valley floor is 9,000 feet. The weather was wonderful; the temperature was in the mid 70’s at the base and mid 40’s on top. The sun shined all day keeping me warm, allowing me to climb all the way to the top with just a T-shirt on. It was wonderful day to be hiking in the back country of Colorado.

Well that turned out to be a rather long account, but it was a long hike. I believe that there were over 600 people that climbed to the summit on the same day as I did. The trail was crowded, but like most hikers they were very friendly as they past by me. I stopped at the tree line and talked to an 83 year old woman from Colorado who was waiting for her husband to summit and come back down, he was a young 85. She was making a sigh out of pebbles along the side of the trail telling him that she had started to head back down to the car. She was very full of life. I’m always amazed at how friendly people are when they are hiking, they will give you all their water and food, if you asked them for it, if they think they go without until they get back to camp. It’s just astonishing to me that people can be so wonderful up there in the deep woods of America.

This is a picture of Mount Massive, it appears to be taller then Elbert from the valley floor, as well as the summit of Elbert. Its only a few feet lower and a much more impressive mountain.