| Peak: | Mt. Elbert - 14,433 feet | |
| Posted By: | The Fred | |
| Post Date: | 07/03/2007 | |
| Date Climbed: | 06/30/2007 | |
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| Elbert - Northeast Ridge |
Snowman, Charla, and I made plans to climb Elbert as the first 14er in a weekend-long climbing excursion in the Sawatch range which would also include a full moon hike of Belford/Oxford and, if time and energy permitted, a hike up Mt. Missouri. It turned out, however, that Elbert took much much more out of us than we ever imagined. Our campsite was near Belford, which is a 30-mile drive from Elbert‘s Northeast Ridge trailhead. We would have preferred to go on the closer East Ridge route, but none of us had a 4-wheel drive to get us to that trailhead. The plan was to start our hike at 5 AM, but we were running late, so we didn‘t end up getting started until 5:50 AM. The trail starts out in a forest:  It starts out with a hefty 500‘ climb before leveling out for a while, even descending a little. But don‘t get too used to the easy hiking, because 1.5 miles in begins a relentless, nasty climb which will continue pretty much all of the way to the summit. There are no switchbacks, either, so most of the climbing is straight up the mountain. The mosquitoes in the forest were really bad. If you stopped for even a few seconds, you‘d quickly find yourself swarmed. The bugs were the worst I‘ve ever encountered on any of my Colorado hikes, so we were anxious to get above treeline. Because of the trail pretty much going straight up, we got above treeline very quickly. It‘s at this point that you can see the first false summit:  The hike across the grassy area isn‘t bad, but when you get to the hill, you once again find yourself hiking straight up the steep slope. When you get to the top of the first false summit, you immediately start a just-as-steep climb up to the next ridge, another false summit. It was here that Charla started to feel the effects of what seemed to be altitude sickness-- lightheadeness, nausea, shortness of breath. Because we had been hiking at a pretty fast pace, we hoped that slowing down and taking more breaks would alleviate her symptoms. The hike up to the second false summit was even steeper than the hike to the first, as you can see from this picture of Snowman hiking ahead of me:  Unfortunately, the breaks and the slower hiking were not helping Charla much. In retrospect, even though we were getting very close to the (actual) summit, the wisest decision probably was to turn around at this point. But Charla did seem to be doing fine with the hiking, it was just that she was feeling incredibly ill while doing so. Regardless, we decided to keep going as long as she felt well enough to hike. After looping around and then getting to the top of the second false summit, it‘s an easy hike across a gentle gradient to the real summit. This was the only place we encountered any significant snow. There was a small snow field along the edge of the trail to the summit, but if you just stayed on the trail, you wouldn‘t even get your shoes wet.  At 9:55 AM, just over 4 hours after we started, we stepped onto the highest point in Colorado:  One of the members of 14ers.com has a signature that says something like, "Getting to the top means you‘re only halfway finished." Boy was that ever true on Elbert. The straight-up-and-down trail means that you either run down for the entire descent or wear out your knees walking down. Even though the weather was beautiful, with hardly a cloud in the sky until we got to the very bottom, the descent was nasty, seemingly just as hard as the ascent. Luckily, Charla started feeling better after we got below treeline. Later on, after the weekend, she found out that she has fluid collecting in her chest and head, so the altitude only aggravated her symptoms, it didn‘t cause them. She‘s still not sure what exactly is the cause of the sickness or what will make it better, so be sure to send her your best wishes. We came off of Elbert beaten down and weary. Charla had to sit out the rest of the climbs that weekend, and Snowman and myself were so worn out that we could only do the Belford half of the Belford/Oxford full moon climb, and didn‘t even bother trying Missouri. After getting off Elbert, we drove into Leadville for lunch and had some burgers and talked about our experience on what we called Devil‘s Mountain. So here‘s the thing. You might have heard the Elbert is an easy climb for a 14er, with a nice trail all the way to the top and so-called easy hiking all the way, Class 1 throughout. But don‘t believe it. Don‘t be like us, coming down with unexpectedly sore knees and exhausted legs. Know coming in that Elbert is a switchback-less, 4700‘ leg-killing climb. It is the Devil‘s Mountain, so be warned!!!! Thumbnails for uploaded photos:  "Image #1")
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