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For my 40th bday my friends and I planned to fly out and summit Elbert. But, we had given ourselves an extra full day to mitigate any potential altitude sickness. When looking for some lakeside trails near town, we decided to see how we'd feel going up Sherman and if anyone got sick, its no big deal. We read the Iowa Gulch trailhead was easily accessible from Leadville (easy is an understatement) and made that the plan.
We were super casual about everything since we weren't concerned about having "success", so we set off after a slow morning (about 8 am MT). The drive out was beautiful like everything else in the mountains and managed to get a parking spot near the trailhead. It was supposed to be windy that day and it was. In fact, the hike would have been, as probably everyone here knows, very quick and easy as 14ers go.
Coming out of the gulchUp to the Saddle
It was "windy" until the saddle, and then we realized how windy actually felt as we watched the others on the trail struggle to walk a straight line. The bit that goes up to the ridgeline was the funniest with folks butt scooting down or crawling up. The wind did make me nervous though. My brother-in-law and I were feeling fine so we walked, crawled, and shimmied in the wind until we got to the top-ish. The wind at the very top wasn't bad, and strolled along the top to the peak, nabbed a picture of our first 14er and headed back. No ill effects besides a newfound hate for real "windy" conditions.
June 13th - 1st 14erGoing down the ridge
It was a great 1st experience minus the wind and gave me a bunch of confidence about Elbert which was set to be the day after.
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