The day started bright and early at the dino lots.  We ditched the little red civic and cruised up to Georgetown.  The road is closed about 2 miles below the standard summer Bierstadt trail head.  After about 10 minutes of talking ourselves out of the 90 degree Subaru we strapped on the snowshoes and were on our way.  The first part of Bierstadt in the Winter is an uneventful snowshoe up the road. We did not snowshoe all the way to the summer trail head.  We cut off one switchback below the summer trail head and snowshoed across the lake and eventually linked up with the standard summer route. 

All day we could see another person off in the distance.  We ended up following his snowshoe trail most of the way to the summit. Honestly I was happy to have a somewhat broken trail, I really dislike wallowing in boob deep snow!  Once we synced up with the standard route we ditched the snowshoes and went with the fast and light plan.

In my opinion once we were on the standard route it felt like a summer day on Bierstadt, maybe even a little easier.  Well the way back down is easier because you can butt slide.

The final push to the summit was a bit slippery, but we eventually made it. It is incredibly rare for Bierstadt to not have 20+ people on the summit, its honestly the 6 flags of 14ers.  We took full advantage of that and chilled on the summit, ate our snacks and chatted with the dude that broke trail for us.

After a quick photo shoot we started our butt slide back down to our snowshoes.  Once we reached our snowshoes we strapped them on and extreme snowshoed all the way back out to the car.

Its pretty hard to believe but this is the first 14er me and Kim tackled together, it only took us a year and a half!  Here’s to a summer of many more 14,000 Ft adventures!

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Glissading (ass sliding) fun down my 30th 14er.

What is 30by30?

At the beginning of the summer I decided to put together a challenge to keep myself busy and active outside.  The Challenge originally was to hike 30 completely new 14ers with out repeating any hiked in previous seasons.  Instead of overwhelming myself with the daunting task of hiking 30 14ers I had never hiked before I decided it was ok to repeat 14ers to make my summer a little more manageable.

When?

I started the challenge off in early July and finished mid October, just in time for the snow to start flying in the high country!  Every weekend, minus a handful I took off for racing and family stuff, was spent chasing 14er summits.

Break down of the 14ers in order of completion.

1. Harvard (7/6/14)
2. Ellingwood (7/19/14)
3. Blanca (7/19/14)
4. Castle  (8/9/14)
5. Conundrum (8/9/14)
6. Kit Carson (8/15/14)
7. Challenger (8/15/14)
8. Bierstadt (8/17/14)
9. Evans (8/17/14)
10. Shavano (8/20/14)
11. Tabeguache (8/20/14)
12. Princeton (8/21/14)
13. Yale (8/21/14)
14. Belford (8/22/14)
15. Massive (8/29/14)
16. Elbert (8/29/14)
17. Huron (8/30/14)
18. Missouri (8/31/14)
19. Belford  (for the 2nd time!)(8/31/14)
20. Oxford (8/31/14)
21. Uncompahgre (9/6/14)
22. Wetterhorn (9/6/14)
23. Democrat (9/20/14)
24. Cameron (9/20/14)
25. Lincoln (9/20/14)
26. Bross (9/20/14)
27. Quandary (9/20/14)
28. Grays (10/4/14)
29. Torreys (10/4/14)
30. La Plata (10/4/14)
31. Sherman (10/18/14)

Where?

This challenge took place in the seven mountain ranges in Colorado that house 14,000(+) ft  peaks.  I was able to hit at least two summits in every range.  Each range seemed to almost have a personality of their own.  The Sangre de Cristo Range was by far my favorite.  They just had a jagged, rugged, intimidating feel to them that made me feel very small, and I did not even touch the hard peaks in that range! I am so excited to tackle some of the difficult summits next season!

Why?

I have tried to keep this page upbeat, humorous, and happy for the most part.  I have to be serious for one paragraph, I promise this is not the trend going forward!

This adventure was born after my life took an unexpected 180 degree turn, I was at a very low point in life.  My afternoons and weekends were spent in tears or sleeping to escape the reality of what was happening.  I was incredibly hard on myself and eventually sought out professional help to help me deal with the depression.  The professional help actually made me feel worse about the situation at first,  it made me feel shitty for not having a handle on my emotions.  Eventually I opened up to it and it was life changing,  I would be lying if I said I had this depression beat and I am over what happened, that scar will be with me for a long time.  What I can say is a summer in the mountains probably saved my life, it got me out of the apartment,  it gave me something to look forward to on the weekend and it gave life a purpose.  I did all but 2 of the 14ers solo, and yes it was lonely at times but I learned a lot about myself,  I became comfortable in my own skin again for the first time in years, I had hours of wonderful conversations with random strangers on the mountains and heard so many cool stories.  What I am trying to say with all of this is depression sucks, being sad sucks, as permanent as it feels its NOT.  The best piece of advice I got was from a friend “You need to find what makes you happy, and that can not be another person”.  This summer I found that being in the mountains chasing peaks truly makes me happy.  I just want to throw a thank you out to my incredibly supportive family, and friends who put up with me in my darkest days.  If anyone who reads this is dealing with depression and needs someone to vent to, hit me up anytime!

Serious time over!

It was an incredibly fun adventure, I made a lot of cool friends and got really good at climbing up hill! (I can put that on my resume right?)

I kept all of my photos organized in one drive.  Feel free to browse!
Photo Cloud

The post 30 14ers in a season (Who, What, When, Where, Why) appeared first on iLikeTrails.

Another 14er fueled by a mountain sunrise.

So this adventure started off like the rest, leave late Friday afternoon, sleep in the Forrester at the TH, get an early start.  As it starts to get colder and colder its getting so much harder to get out of the sleeping bag!  Before I went to sleep I stuffed my sleeping bag with all of the clothes I planned on wearing the next day so I did not have to put cold clothes on.  Morning time came around very quickly, and I fought the ridiculous urge to pee for a good 30 minutes because I did not want to face the cold, I even contemplated using the empty water jug I had in the back of the car.  I finally gave up the battle and faced the cold, which was really not that bad once I put my warm clothes on and started moving around.

Remnants of the old mining operation.

Having hiked Sherman already I knew I was in for an easy day, even with the snow I could see the trail all the way up to the summit ridge.  The march up Sherman took a little over an hour and I could not justify driving and camping out overnight for a 2 hour hike so I started chasing random peaks off in the distance.  While on my peak chasing adventure I snuck in some glissading, running, and other shenanigans that had me smiling and giggling like a small child.  This was my first hike where I went out of my way to bag 13ers in the area and I am definitely hooked, there will be many more 13ers in my future!

Where I headed after Sherman and White Ridge.
Where I came from.

My exact path was Sherman –> White Ridge –> Sherman –> Sheridan –> Horseshoe –> Bushwhack back to the car.  It was a very rewarding day and it felt incredible to finish off my 30by30 challenge with such a fun day.  Stay tuned for a who, what, when, where, and why 30by30 post recapping why I thought this was a good idea.

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I was taking on a very popular set of 14ers on a Saturday morning with perfect weather.  Just as I suspected I was part of a conga line up the first summit, Mt Democrat.  There were headlamps as far as the eye could see all the way up to the summit. Usually this kind of ruins the magic of the 14er for me but it was nice to have random strangers to talk to on the way up the summit.  For the 1st summit you literally start gaining elevation as soon as you pass the lake, there are no nice switch backs below the tree line, you step out of your car above tree line and start up the switch backs.  You are are at about 12,000 at the parking lot and the summit of Democrat is just under 2 miles from there so it’s a fairly steep climb.  It took me just under a hour to get to the summit of Democrat and after taking a razzing from some strangers about wearing shorts on the summit I jogged off into the sunrise over to Mt Cameron.

I am honestly not even sure if I summited Mt. Cameron, After speaking to some people on Mt Lincoln they assured me that I did and that its just not very recognizable.  For the Mt. Bross Summit I decided to stick with a group of people I met coming off of Lincoln because its technically closed and it would be harder for them to take us all to jail.

I hung out on Mt. Bross and ate my breakfast with the other criminals.  By 7am I was on my way back down Mt. Bross and had already bagged four 14ers for the day. My legs were feeling good, I had plenty of food and water so I made the decision to knock out Quandary Peak on the way back to Denver.  This would save me a drive back up to Breckenridge for one 14er!

Quandary was even more crowded that the pervious four peaks I had summited.  There were at least 20 people on the summit when I arrived.  I did not care though I was just up there to tick another peak off my list and jog back down!  After trading some picture time with a couple strangers I made my way back down Quandary.  Random fact On my way down I met 5 separate people from WI, I swear everyone out here is from the Midwest!  These five peaks put me at 26 for the summer and put me in a really good place to finish up my 30 summits before I need my splitboard!

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The approach to Wetterhorn Peak was similar to Uncompahgre, you will follow well marked single track up to the ridge taking you up and around to the back side of Wetterhorn.  This where the climb becomes more difficult but fun!  Route finding was a little tricky as there seemed to be multiple marked paths. Luckily my 14ers.com friend had studied the route and he had it down pretty well.
Eric getting ready to start the fun part of the climb.
Eric making his way up the 1st class 3 section.
We followed a well marked fairly wide ridge to the back side of Wetterhorn, eventually this ridge stops and you just turn and start the class 3 climbing up to the summit.  The rock was fairly stable in most places, but we gave each other plenty of room to avoid showering rocks down on each other.  It was a class 3 grind all the way up to the summit and was a lot of fun! 
A look back at Uncompahgre from Wetterhorn.
We were very lucky with the weather on the summit, it was 60 degrees with 0 wind and barley a cloud in the sky.  After some summit pictures and a few snacks we started making our way back down.  Climbing back down the class 3 route we had just came up seemed harder than going up. We just took it slow and managed to work our way back to the easy flowing single track back to the car.  Over all this was one of my favorite 14ers this year and Is a definite repeat in my book.

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This adventure started the Friday before Labor Day at 5am.  I drove down the night before and crashed in the Forester at the Leadville fish hatchery where everybody was planning to head out.  Me and Israel discussed the game plan for the 1st mountain. he was going to go up the Nolan’s 14 route from the fish hatchery and I was going to drive around and meet him in between Mt Massive and Elbert. I drove around to the south side of Massive and decided to try and knock it out via the standard route, the worst that could happen is I would meet Israel coming down and would have to turn back.  We ended up meeting about 20 minutes off of the Massive summit, at that point I was not going to turn back 20 minutes below the Mt. Massive summit so Israel kept on heading down the mountain and I cruised up to the summit, took a couple pictures and hauled ass down the mountain to catch back up with him.
Mt Elbert from Mt Massive – The next peak in line

The climb from hell!

I managed to haul enough ass to catch back up with Israel just before he hit the standard Mt Massive TH. We jogged down the road to where I had parked, took a short break to refuel and then started the adventure up Mt. Elbert.  Not going to lie this route kicked my ass, the 1st 3 miles were not bad.  But at mile 3 you turn off the 4wd road and head straight up a gully to the summit. You are a mile off of the summit from the road, but this mile involves climbing 3,000+ Ft to get to the summit!  It took us just under a hour to make the climb and my quads were happy it was over at the summit!  I took the standard route back down to the car with plans of meeting Israel at the Winfield aid station on the other side of La Plata.

Israel after spending the night in a snow storm on La Plata

I met Israel around 9:00 the next morning as he was coming off of the La Plata summit.  He has a lot of spring in his step for having just spent the night on the summit of a 14er in a snow storm.  I can not imagine how cold he was at 3:30 am on that summit, it was 32 degrees in my car at 10,000ft, it must have been border line unbearable on that summit! I hiked up the trail with a couple of the girls from the aid station with hot food and water, he looked very excited to see the food, he practically pounced on the Ziploc bag of gummy bears they had brought him!

After a short break at the aid station we set off up the road to tackle Huron Peak.  The hike up Huron was overcast, cold, and snowy.  It felt really weird hiking up the mountain as everyone else was bailing out and heading back down.  We got the typical “be careful, we don’t want to read about you in the paper” lectures from the people going down the mountain.  By the time we were on the summit of Huron the clouds had dispersed and the weather was actually pretty nice on the summit, minus the wind.  The typical Nolan’s 14 route is to drop down a steep slope off of the East side of Huron and then back up a steep slope to Missouri. As neither of us were 100% familiar with that route and we were almost guaranteed to have to do it in the dark, we decided to head back down the standard Huron route and follow the road back to the Missouri Gulch TH.  We decided to get a full nights sleep at the trail head and then tackle Missouri, Belford, Oxford in the morning.

The next morning we headed out around 6:30 up the dreaded Missouri Gulch switch backs (never again!).  I have been up Missouri before so I just followed the standard trail up while Israel hiked straight up the side of the mountain. We met back up on the ridge heading over to the summit.  From the ridge we hiked a little under a mile up to the summit, took our pictures, grabbed some video and discussed our ascent off of Missouri.  I have to say I am very pleased with the route we took down, it was so much fun!  The route was incredibly steep with ankle deep scree which you basically floated on top of, it felt like skiing on snow.  It took us about 10 minutes to descend from 14 to 12.8.  Once down in the valley between Missouri and Belford we decided not to backtrack for the standard route up Belford and just went up straight up the side.  This was a great choice and was a walk in the park after crawling up Elbert on my hands and knees!

We were greeted with 50mph + winds on the summit of Belford and did not stick around on the summit for long, we took a few pictures and immediately started hoofing it over to Oxford. The traverse over to Oxford was pretty uneventful besides the ungodly cold winds and legs that were begging to quit.

The plan at the beginning of the day was to stop at Oxford, and by the time we got to that summit there was only about 3 hours left in the race, which was not enough time to get over to the other 2 summits. Israel managed to hike across 7 consecutive peaks in the 60 hour time limit which is a huge accomplishment!  I honestly would have called it quits after the night on La Plata!  Any who Great job on your 1st attempt Israel you are a true inspiration!

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HamBEARger says wake up!Tabegauche Peak from Mt. Shavano

There were no route finding issues at all on either of these peaks.  This was my 2nd time up both of these summits so I really just wanted to get them over with!  It took me about 2 hours to get to the Shavano summit and then another hour to get over to Tab and back.  I was back in my sleeping bag reading a book by 11:30am. In hind sight I could have probably bagged another peak that afternoon, the weather was perfect!
Mt. Shavano from Tabegauche Peak

As I was resting up near the trail head a few groups of people came down talking about a guy who was moving really slow and having a hard time making his way down Shavano. At that point I had no other 14er plans for the day so I grabbed a little extra water and headed back up to make sure this guy was doing all right.  I ran into him about 3 miles up the trail just below tree line and honestly he was doing fine, just a little slow and tired after tackling both 14ers.  He did not accept any water or food from me but I decided to hike back out with him for moral support because I have been in his position before and know how much having someone to chat with makes the miles go by a little faster. Early morning on Mt. Princeton.

The rest of my day was spent napping, driving into town to eat an entire pizza solo and trying to find the Mt. Antero trail head.  After 2 hours of looking at the map and driving back and forth on the same road I decided to just skip Antero and camp at the Princeton trail head instead. I managed to make it just past the radio towers on the 4×4 road, cutting the trip almost in half from the bottom parking lot.
A look back at the trail up Mt. Princeton

Again the hike up Princeton was really straight forward, you can see the trail and summit almost the entire hike. I cruised on up to the summit seeking out crazy marmots on the way up, unfortunately they were either all still sleeping or got they got the memo that the marmot paparazzi was on the mountain.

Mt Princeton took me 3 and a half hours which got me back to the car by 9:30am.  This gave me plenty of time to drive over to Yale and check another 14er off the list.  Normally I would not start a 14er at 11:30am but the skies were completely clear and I went into it fully prepared to abandon the hike if the weather took a turn.
Curious Goat did not want to share my snickers

The hike up Mt. Yale was a little longer than Princeton but the weather held out and it was a perfect day to chill out on the summit and enjoy a snack and laugh at the wild life.  There was a very curious goat that scared me half to death, I was sitting down in the pile of rocks in the picture below and he just cruised right up and peeked his head over the ledge. I am pretty sure he did not see me because he scampered away as soon as he realized there was a person sitting there.

Yale Summit
Cold and windy Belford summit approach!

Very low visibility on the summit!

After my day on Yale I slept at the Missouri Gulch trail head with high hopes of bagging Belford, Oxford, Missouri.  I hit the trail bright and early,  but ended up hiking into a snow storm hanging over the Missouri Gulch valley. There were a lot of people turning back but after hiking the switch backs up to Missouri Gulch I as not leaving with out at least one peak! There was no thunder or lightning, just really high winds and snow.  I was able to tolerate the weather up to the Belford summit but it was complete white out conditions at the summit so I cut my losses and headed back down with 1 of the 3 summits I wanted for the day because I knew I would be back in the area helping a friend with his Nolan’s 14 attempt.  Stay tuned for that write up!

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