#6 Quandary Peak (14,265') July 04, 2012

When July 4th hits on a Wednesday it doesn't make for a long weekend, but it does make for a rare, but welcomed, mid week summit. For my sixth 14er I chose Quandary Peak. The nice thing about Quandary is that its just south of Breckenridge. I would be hiking this one solo, and because of that I decided to car camp at the trail head the night before. This would also allow me to get an early start and summit relatively close to sunrise.

Tuesday was a slow day at work and my boss decided to let us go early, so I quickly headed home finished packing the car and headed out of town. I got to Breckenridge well before dark and decided to take Darwin, my 2 year old beagle, for a walk around the town to get some energy out before we got to the trail head.  After our walk we drove the rest of the way and found little pull off just past the trail head where I parked for the night. After a little reading (Consilience by E.O. Willson, recommended by a friend) I called it a night.

I woke up around 4:30, and it was still dark. I downed a couple protein drinks and drove back down to the trail head. After getting my pack together and getting Darwin ready for the hike we were ready to go just before 5:00 am, it was still fairly dark out and the trail started below treeline, but it was a full moon so I could see enough to stay on track.

Full Moon over North Star Mountain to my south...

 This hike like Sherman, which is only 10 miles or so to the south started out climbing and did so the whole way. I tend to hike at a pretty steady clip when I'm solo hiking, but trying to keep up with Darwin was definitely a challenge.

Sunrise Towards Keystone

 Once the sun was out enough to see we started covering ground pretty fast. Soon we could see a group that had left the trail head about 15 min. before us. I could also see several groups on the ridge and just below the summit. Looked like a few people had the idea of doing a sunrise hike. Also looked like they had started around 3:00 am.

 Before long the trees started to become smaller and smaller, while grass turned to gravel. We caught up with the group just ahead of us at about the half way point and passed them while they took a break. I don't think Darwin and I took a break longer than a minute the whole way up.

Quandary Peak in the distance

 Once we reached the ridge the summit was in sight the rest of the way up. The trial turned into a screed field that makes gaining elevation a bit more difficult. We passed another group going up that said they left the trial head around 3:30 am, they joked that they guessed I left around 5:00 am when they saw me coming up behind them. I stopped to chat for a little while, to help lift there spirits about the rest of the hike, the rest of their party had gone ahead a little ways. I passed a couple groups that were heading down from the summit and I caught up with the rest of the group that had spit up about 400 feet below the summit.

Ridge leading up to Quandary Peak

 I reached the summit around 7:00 am, about 2 hours after I started. There were two guys at the top so I asked if they would snap a picture of me.

North Star Mountain directly behind me, and the Mosquito Quad (Lincoln, Democrat, Cameron, and Bross) in the distance.

  Shortly after summitting the first group I passed showed up. Four guys decked out in American flags and 70's style jorts... They tried to shotgun a couple Budweiser Ameri"cans" which failed miserably. The two groups didn't stick around long which was nice, because I got a little time alone on the summit. It was a foggy/smokey morning, hard to tell the difference, but the views were incredible.

Atlantic Peak, and Pacific Peak to the Left. Peak 8 & 9 at Breckenridge Ski Resort in the Distance.

Another view of North Star Mountain and the Mosquito Quad looking south

One more pick of me looking north.

McCullough Gulch to the north

 Once the group that had split up reached the summit and after a short chat I decided to head back down. It was about 7:40 am and I was looking forward to getting back home before noon. The way down was pretty quick going, jogging some when I could to make up for time spent letting people pass. The sun was coming out and it was getting hotter every minute. I was glad for my early start as I saw people coming up already in shorts and t-shirts.

I made it back to the car around 9:00 am for a total trip time of 4 hours. The trip was 6 3/4 miles up and back with an elevation gain of 3,450 ft. I really enjoyed my mid week hike. I got back to Denver well before noon, and got to take a much needed nap before heading over to a friends for a 4th of July dinner.

#5 Mt. Evans (14,264') July 01, 2012

For my 5th peak I would finally be hiking with my new friends Joni and Nick. Our destination was the 14,264' summit of Mt. Evans. Many Coloradans know that you can drive to the top of Mt. Evans, and for this reason it is not considered one of the coveted peaks on the list of 14ers. Something to do with seeing old people in RV’s and couch potatoes in flip flops when you summit tends to underwhelm the experience. I myself was not as enthusiastic about this peak when we first planed it a month or so ago. I assumed we were going to take the popular route from summit lake over Mt. Spalding a short 5.5 mile round trip. However, the week of the hike Joni sent me a message asking if I was alright taking a less traveled rout from Guanella Pass, the trailhead for Bierstadt. It was a 8.5 mile route that traversed some areas that I could see from my Bierstadt hike. I was excited out about this route choice and any doubts about the hike were squashed. We planed on a 4:30 departure from Denver, and Nick offered to drive which was nice because I have done all the driving on my last 4 hikes.

I arrived at their place around 4:20 just as they were coming out (a good sign, early risers and punctual) so I jumped in their car and we took off. Its about an hour and a half drive, with a short stop for caffeine, to the top of Guanella Pass south of Georgetown. When we got there, the parking lot was starting to fill up, it looked like Bierstadt was going to be busy today.

We left the trailhead around 6:00 am and started down the Bierstadt trail. Shortly after we started hiking we came across a small group of moose off to our south. Nick was pretty excited because it was his first moose sighting in the 3 years since he had moved to Colorado. After trying to get a couple pictures we got back to the trail.
                                  

Mt. Spalding, Sawtooth Ridge, and Bierstadt (left to right)

Moose in the distance

Pretty quickly we reached the split in the trail that led to Mt. Evans. This meant we would be leaving the well defined, well traveled Bierstadt trail for what we were soon to find out was a muddy, spongy, nonexistent trail. It didn’t matter much we could see where we needed to go so we soldiered on. The marsh quickly turned into willows which provided an interesting navigation challenge, trying to stay dry and on course. After a while we reached a creek that flowed out of the gully that the standard trail followed. Joni had sent me a trail report the night before of a group that had gone to the north of the ridge/gully coming around from the north west of Mt. Spalding. We could see both routes and decided that the northern route looked more interesting.

The Gully is visible at the left of the picture.

Half way up the valley we started getting boxed in by ponds and thick willows. We took turns picking routs through the maze, making slow progress.

Mt. Bierstadt looking south

Once we got above tree line and the sun came out the hiking got a lot easier. The views were getting better every step we took and it was hard to concentrate on making forward progress with all the beautiful scenery. At this point except for the very distant view of the parking lot it was like being completely isolated from civilization. All you could see was rolling hills and distant mountain ranges. This was quickly becoming one of my favorite hikes.

Because our route took us on the back side of Mt. Spalding we could no longer see Bierstadt and the Sawtooth ridge, which was my reference in determining which direction we should be hiking. I decided to go on ahead to try and get a bearing. We were planning on summiting Mt. Spalding so Joni and Nick were taking a more direct route up the mountain. 

I hiked over to a ridge till I could see Bierstadt and found this balancing rock that was in the trail report Joni had sent me, so I knew we were at least following the route we planed on. From here I could see that what we were thinking was the summit of Mt. Spalding was really a false summit. So I quickly made my way over to the other 2 and discussed our options.

Once they realized that it was quite a bit further to summit Spalding it was decided that we should just skirt around Spalding and avoid the elevation gain, our route had already added a mile or more onto our 8.5 mile round trip and we could see that we had a ways to go before reaching Evans.

Mt. Bierstadt

Once we got around to the southwest of Mt. Spalding, we merged up with the original trail that went up the gully, we started to see more people on the trail, and we could also see Evans in the distance. At this point the sun was out and the weather was perfect.

Mt. Spalding

The Ridge we hiked over from the backside of Mt. Spalding. The Gully is at the bottom left of the picture.

Mt. Spalding and Summit Lake

Around 9:20am, about 3.5 hours in, we reached the ridge just north of Bierstadt and the Sawtooth. We would follow this ridge all the way around to the summit of Mt Evans.

Mt. Bierstadt and the Sawtooth Ridge

We reached the parking lot near the summit around 10:30am, and as expected there was quite a crowd. It looked like a biker club had decided to do a summit ride and the grandparents were out in force. We spotted the restrooms and decided to make a stop before going up to the summit. I got yelled at by a guy staring at some goats because I tried to sneak past the line, nobody noticed that someone had exited on of the restrooms. I guess hiking 5 miles to the summit doesn't buy you any leeway with the folks who drove up...

Me at the summit of Mt. Evans

Anyways, once we finally summited I forgot about the crowds and remembered why I started hiking 14ers. To view the world from its top is without a doubt a magical experience. No matter how many of these I hike the views always amaze me. Those who know me, know I'm not a spiritual person, and I don't subscribe to a higher power, but the scale and beauty of the natural world at 14,000 ft is humbling and awe inspiring.

Looking out over Summit Lake (North Northeast)

After a short stay at the summit we noticed what looked to be storm clouds rolling in. This was our cue to start our descent. It about 11:00 am and we had several hours before we were off the mountain. Along our descent the clouds started getting more and more ominous. At one point it actually started to snow, which was an unexpected occurrence seeing that it was 100 degrees in Denver not some 60 miles away. We never did see lightning something all peak climbers fear, and after an hour or so the clouds started to make there way past us. We were glad the chances of a storm were gone but the lack of cloud cover made the temperature start to rise. By the time we reached the gully we we were stashing layers pretty fast. Our climb down the gully was pretty slow going. The heat was rising and it was only made worse by the bare rocks that made up the gully.

Half way down we realized that even though the gully route was shorter we were glad we went around it on our way up. It was steep and filled with loose gravel and rock. Going down provided a spectacular view of Guanella Pass, Square Top Mountain, and even Grays and Torrys in the distance, but going up would mean probably 2 hours of staring at a vertical gravel field.

Once we made it down the gully I turned to take one last picture looking up before stashing my camera for the remainder of the the hike. We reached the willows and the marsh we encountered earlier that morning, but the distant view of the trailhead spurred us on. We made quick work of the last 2 miles or so and reached the car around 2:00pm. All said it took about 8 hours, we hiked about 10 miles, went from cool and comfortable in the morning to snow and hot sun in the afternoon, there were crowds of people at the summit, but it was still one of my favorite 14ers to date.

Next up Quandary on July 4th, only 3 days away.

#3 & #4 Grays Peak (14,270') & Torreys Peak (14,267') June 23, 2012

For my 3rd and 4th 14ers I decided to do Grays and Torreys Peaks, a popular combo just west of Georgetown. For this hike my friends Chris and Cassie decided to tag a long. I also brought along Darwin, my 2 year old beagle, to see how he would do on these hikes. I was please when my friends said that they would be up for leaving whenever I was. G&T is a pretty popular hike because it is relatively close to Denver and you can do two peaks in one day, for this reason I wanted to be up there pretty early to beat the crowds and the heat, so we decided that a 4:00am departure time was appropriate.

I woke up around 3:00am and finished packing my water and snacks for me and Darwin. I sent a text to my friends around 3:30 to see how they were coming along. They said they would be ready at 4:00 so I packed up the truck and headed over. When I got to their place I noticed that they were both wearing their Vibram FiveFingers something I had been debating about doing the last two hikes. Their way of looking at it was they wear them everywhere else what makes a 14er any different, a sentiment I shared, so we made a quick trip back over to my place and I grabbed mine.

We arrived at the trail head around 5:30 am, just as I planned, to find quite a few people already there, at least a dozen cars in the parking lot. After getting our packs on and the dogs situated, they brought their dog too, we headed down the trail.

 

The trail head for G&T is just below tree line and nestled in a nice little valley to the north of the two peaks, which made the start of the hike shaded and cool, which was nice. We were making pretty good time when Athena, Chris and Cassie's dog, decided to roll in some very smelly, very wet, animal droppings which made her smell god awful. It was quite interesting trying to find ways to clean her without towels, soap, gloves, or a water source.

Our first view of Grays Peak

Anyways we finally got her fairly clean and we headed on down the trail. At the base of the mountain we came across some springs that flowed out of the ground that had some of the clearest water I have ever seen. Cassie decided to use some rocks and the water to get Athena a little cleaner before we went any further.

By the time we got back to hiking the sun had come up over the ridge to our east and it started to warm considerably. We all stashed our top layers and started up the first real climb of the hike.

Torreys Peak

Even though we started at about the same time as I started Bierstadt the week before, we were hiking with quite a few other hikers along the trail. We also came across sever groups of hikers that had apparently done the summit in the dark and were already heading down.

Kelso Mountain northeast of Torreys Peak

I was quite impressed at our pace, I tend to get into a rhythm and forget to ask if anyone needs a break, and before I new it we were halfway up the switchback section just below the summit. We took maybe two short breaks on the switchbacks and were at the summit before we know it.

Rock Tower about half way up the switchbacks.

When we arrived at the summit of Grays Peak we were not alone by any means. There were at least a dozen or more people spread out admiring the views. We found a pile of rocks that offered a great photo opportunity. Once up on the shaky rocks Cassie yelled out, "You should do a yoga pose, like tree..."

I had to get a photo with Darwin on the peak, seeing that the little guy summited before I did, I should offer proof that he was there. After a group shot of the three of us we decided to fuel up on some trail food. We also took this time to feed the dogs that were at this point scavenging through any open packs they could find.

Before leaving I suggested we take a photo with our Vibrams, so we found the best view we could find and pointed our toes in that direction.

After we had our fill or food, water and the views from Grays we decided to head down the saddle towards Torreys peak the second of the two peaks on our hike. It was becoming clear that Chris and Cassie were pretty worn out from our accent and they were talking about not doing the second summit. The trail split at the bottom of the summit and headed back towards the main trail so it wasn't a big deal if they wanted to wait at the bottom of Torreys while I summit solo, but I offered to wait till they got to the saddle so they had time to decide.

Half way down they were pretty sure they were not going to do the second peak and that I should go on ahead while they took their time down the saddle. With that being decided I quickened my pace and made it to the bottom of the saddle relatively quick and before long I was staring at a pretty steep scrabble slope with no switchbacks. The accent was only about 450 feet from the saddle but straight up. Darwin was consistently 20 yards above/ahead of me so I made really good time trying to keep up with him. It took about 20 min from when I left my friends to summit Torreys. At this point the wind was picking up considerably and I didn't want to leave them waiting too long so I asked someone to snap a picture and after a short break to take in the views I was quickly on my way back down.

View southwest of Torreys towards Keystone and Breckenridge.

The valley we hike through up to the peaks.

Grays Peak seen from Torreys. You can see the trail switchback up the face.

I made it back down to the saddle where my friend were waiting and we started the decent. The trail was pretty crowded on the way down. I'm still surprised by some of the people I see on these hikes. Some of them look as if they woke up the day of and decided to hike a 14er without any forethought. We made it back down to the valley and saw a message that someone had wrote with the rocks.

The rest of the hike went smoothly, the temperature started to climb considerably but it didn't hinder our pace. We made it back to the car pretty tired our feet a little beat up from kicking rocks on the trail in our Vibrams, you notice the rocks more with "bare feet" when you start getting tired and forget to lift your feet... haha. When we got to the car we were all in agreement that Beau Jo's Pizza was going to be a necessary stop on our way back.