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Mountain: Pikes Peak
Summit Elevation: 14,110 ft
TH Elevation: 10,100
Elevation Gain: 4,200
Round-Trip: 12.00 miles (0.5 added due to parking location)
TH Name: Crags Campground
Date: 5/3/2007
Climbing Partner: None
Special Gear: Took snowshoes, but did not use them.
Notable Times:
5:28am Leave Car
11:11am Arrive Summit
12:15pm Leave Summit
4:03pm Arrive Car
In keeping with my schedule to climb a bunch of 14ers this warm season, I climbed this on my second-choice day. What a perfect day for a climb!
After waking up my wife at 2:30am, I left Denver with her good wishes. I arrived at the parking around 5am and proceeded to close my eyes for 5 minutes. Though I don't have a picture, there was a gate closing off Crags Campground and a sign stating it was closed for tree fall mitigation. Hopefully it will open soon.
After gearing up, I locked the car and left a few minutes after a fellow climber was getting ready. I started with the headlamp on my head, but didn't turn it on at all during the hike as the sun was starting to brighten the sky.
About an hour into the climb, I snapped this photo of the trail ahead to show the conditions (look at that beautiful, clear, awakening sky):
And here's the trail behind from the same location:
Climbing further, the trail became hard to understand as there were many footprints going many directions. Finally I saw some pink ribbons on a series of trees and followed the trail that connected those. Emerging from treeline, the wind was brisk, and after a while was no longer refreshing.
I couldn't wait for the sun to pop up over the saddle. Finally after some more climbing, the sun peeked over and I shot this one showing the ground cover, and my very tall shadow!
And a wider shot of the view from that spot:
Climbing further, there was finally some rock to walk on.
One frozen lake and one thawed lake in the distance:
Look how short that climb seems from here! There's the summit!
Showing the ground conditions:
Here's a shot from the road showing the snow slope the trail crosses. The snow was not in a condition to slide, lucky for me:
Some more climbing and then I hit the final summit push. I was a bit cold, tired, and ready to rest for a while, but knew the best option was to hit this push and get inside to rest.
After some good effort climbing the final pitch, I was given the hero's welcome by a group of 4 girls watching me climb the last bit of the slope. I went and took a picture of someone on the summit who then ran off to catch the train. As I rounded the corner of the building, it was like I had just come from Mars. Everybody in line for the train was looking at me and asking "Did you climb up here?" One friendly gentleman came up to me and asked the same thing and said he wasn't "to that point yet," but would hopefully do it one day. If I inspired one person that day to start climbing, then all the effort was more than worth it.
Here's a shot of the last of the group getting on the train:
After a good hour of relaxation at the summit, I headed off for the trail. On my way back, I had someone from the next train snap the hero shot:
I decided to hike the road back down for a peaceful walk to Devils Playground. On my way down, a Pikes Peak blue truck came speeding up the road with lights flashing. A while later, I looked back up the mountain and saw it coming back down from the top. I then turned around a corner after it passed me and saw both trucks sitting at Devils Playground blocking the road. Cars and hikers were not allowed to pass going up the mountain. There were at least 3 or 4 cars that had to turn around, and I met up with a group of 4 hikers (Smoove included) who unfortunately had to turn around. Apparently there was a problem on the mountain.
So, I guess being the early bird, I got the worm. I hiked back down on and off with Smoove and crew, taking a different way down than we did up, but eventually meeting up with the trail at tree line.
I got back to the car and rested for a little and revealed my feet that were hurting the whole way down.
I drove home and arrived just in time to take advantage of the bubble bath my wife fixed for me. Unfortunately I have been unable to get out and run or bike since and I have been sore. Well, I guess that's the price for climbing Pikes Peak as the first of the season, with a bigger bag than usual.
Kojones
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
First: congrats on a cool summit trek.
Second: Congrats also on slipping in ”under the wire” and avoiding their arrogant closing off of the mountain, due to some unspecified ”problem.” I find it interesting that a day later, no one can seem to determine just what this ”problem” was. If I had encountered such a ”closure” on the way up, be assured that I would have retreated out of sight in some direction, and then resumed my summit attempt.
Well, Kojones, that will teach me about getting a late start! I still cannot believe we were forced to turn aruond. Trust me, we seriously considered cftbq‘s idea...but ultimately decided it wasn‘t worth it. Beautiful day for a hike, but incredibly frustrating that we had to turn around 1000 feet from the summit with nothing but blue skies around us.
So, I guess I‘ve never heard of Pikes Peak being closed to hikers... When did we reach this level of bueracracy in the mountains? A sign of the times, I suppose.
Anyway, nice TR Kojones, thanks for sharing and congrats on the summit!
Good report! Seems to be a lot less snow now, given the most recent TR. Too bad the Pikescrats had to turn back that group. If it was me and I had made it that far, I‘d be pissed (and would probably have spoken my mind, thus getting me into trouble)! Imagine if someone popped up on the other side of the Knife Edge and said, ”Sorry, this is as far as you can go.”?
”After waking up my wife at 2:30am, I left Denver with her good wishes.” ...
”I drove home and arrived just in time to take advantage of the bubble bath my wife fixed for me.”
I gotta let my wife read your trip report! :P
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