For my first 14er of the season I was talked into doing the one that I had done the year before with the Rocky Mountain Texas Exes. Mt. Sherman is considered one of the easiest with a short 5 1/4 mile round trip, and a trail head that starts at 12,000 ft. Mt. Sherman is about 10 miles outside of Fairplay Co. which is about a 2 hour drive from Denver.
Two friends from my apartment complex, Erin and Ian, decided to join and
because the night before consisted of a trip to the newly opened Lowry
Beer Gardens it was decided that a 5:30am departure time was the most
realistic. I probably would have left at 3:30am but that would most
likely mean I would be hiking alone.
We arrived at the trail head at about 7:30 am after a pretty bumpy ride
up the dirt road outside of Fairplay. We piled out of the truck and wasted no time heading up the trail. Even though Sherman is
considered the easiest of the 14ers it starts off with a pretty steep
climb that gets the lungs working. We took our time getting used to the
altitude and elevation gain and after a while we started making pretty
good progress. We made it up to the old mining buildings in the valley
below the summit only to find that the 100+ year old structures had blown down in the last year.
We took the standard route up and after a short snow field we made it up to the saddle just before the ridge to the summit, where we encountered some pretty nasty winds. The temperature also started to drop as we climbed. I had brought along a couple of layers that I wasn't wearing at the time and offered to share with Erin who had a light hoody on.
The ridge was a little sketchy, at times we felt like we might blow away. So we decided to take shelter for a while on the back side of the ridge to gather ourselves before making a push for the summit. A man and his two sons, probably 8 and 10, were trying to summit and it was clear that the kids were not having it. We had them sit with us out of the wind for a while to help calm them down. After our short break we got back to it and made short work of remaining portion of the ridge. At the top there were a couple groups that had summited before we did so we had them take a few pictures for us. We took a little time at thesummit and got out of the wind as best we could while we snacked on trail mix and wheat thins, before watching two guys shotgun a couple beers.
After a short break at the summit we decided to make our way down. the wind was still pretty strong so I finally put on my rain coat which was pretty warm, probably because waterproof means wind proof. I probably should have put it on a little sooner, but I was warm now so I wasn't worried about hind sight. On the way down I think the cold and wind finally got to Ian, because he decided to try laying on the rocks to soak up their warmth, not sure if it helped or not.
Once we got down the the valley it started to warm up considerably, we started shedding layers and the others took some time looking at the old mining buildings. We took a shortcut down a rocky hill that cut off a little distance. The last downhill portion of the hike to the trail head wasn't as bad as going up so we made good time.
When we made it back to the truck and after shedding the hiking boots we piled in and took off for home. Ian and Erin dozed off a couple of times, something I was quite jealous about. We tried to stop for hotdogs at this place Erin knew about along 285 but there was a pretty long line and it was way to hot to be standing in line for a hotdog, plus we were all pretty exhausted so we left.
I enjoyed getting back up Mt. Sherman for the second time. It was a nice way to warm up for my hiking season. I plan on hiking quite a few more 14ers in the coming weeks.
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