Those of you who have known me for more than a couple months or have spent a summer with me know that I LOVE Colorado and the mountains that come with it. More specifically, I'm a little obsessed with 14ers, or mountains that rise above 14,000 feet. When I wrote my list of 30 before 30 I had already climbed 16 of them. Being at NRO this summer in Breckenridge allowed me to get closer to this goal, since the prime climbing season is in the summer and fall, and I'm rarely in Colorado anymore during the fall season. (If you're interested in seeing all of the pictures (of most of the 14ers I've climbed) rather than just the summit pictures, head on over to my 14ers Facebook album.)
2015
The first trip we took was to the Kite Lake Trailhead. We got three more summits!
17: Mt. Democrat (with Tim Steeves, Matt Armbruster, and David Beytas)
20: Mt. Columbia
After our concert and rehearsal on Sunday, July 19, Tim and I drove to Buena Vista, CO and slept overnight at the trailhead for Mt. Harvard and Mt. Columbia. We were going to attempt both, but only summitted Mt. Columbia and were heading over to Mt. Harvard before getting very lost, quite cold, and dealing with lightning before realizing there was no way we were getting out of this on our own. We ended up calling Search and Rescue, who helped direct us off the mountain with an alternate route and met up with us about 2 hours later to shuttle us to my car (don't worry, no helicopter necessary). Although we didn't technically descend the correct way, it was a hell of a long descent, and so I'm counting this one anyway!
In retrospect, with all those clouds, we should've just come down after Columbia.
21: Mt. Harvard
We returned to the same trailhead to attempt Mt. Harvard 2 weeks after our disaster with Mt. Columbia. We are happy to report that it was a success with beautiful weather, a well marked trail and two happy and warm campers!
This rock had the name of the peak and the elevation written on it, but it's not visible in the picture.
21/54 total 14ers climbed.
5 new summits in 2015 in 3 trips.
Approximately 40 miles and 12,350 vertical feet climbed.
2016
I again spent the summer in Breckenridge at NRO, but due to many different factors, only did a repeat 14er (Quandary) while I was there. After NRO was done, I got serious.
22 & 23: Mt. Bierstadt and Mt. Evans
I've had my eye on Mt. Bierstadt/Mt. Evans for a while now, because climbing them both would allow me to finish up all the peaks in the Front Range. When the weather finally cleared up from a storm front that lasted a couple of days, I drove to Aspen to pick up Tim and we made the trek to the Guanella Pass trailhead near Denver. We started hiking the next morning at 3:58am. Mt. Bierstadt's summit was our first stop at 6:34am.
Then we headed down and over to the Sawtooth. This is the name for the connecting ridge between Bierstadt and Evans. It was a lot of fun to traverse over this!
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| Tim's all smiles as we cross the Sawtooth! |
After the Sawtooth, we climbed another hour or so before reaching the top of Mt. Evans at 10:24am.
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| I know you can't read the sign, but it does say "Mt. Evans" |
The descent was very rough: about 20 minutes in, my left ankle gave out and I fell hard onto both my knees. With Tim helping me up and over rocks, we finally made our way into and down the gully, where we first heard thunder. I slipped on a wet rock about 15 minutes later and slammed down hard onto my right hand (even through a thick, padded glove it still caused major swelling and bruising--and hurt like hell). The final mile was bushwhacking through willows and mud swamps, which left us both quite grumpy and our shoes an entirely different color. But, we did make it back to the car around 2pm, and what a welcome sight that was!
Farewell, Front Range. You definitely made me work for it!
24: Mt. Bross
I did this as my solo ascent for the summer! You can check it out here: http://sophiedoes30things.blogspot.com/2016/08/solo-climbing.html
24/54 14ers climbed.
3 new summits in 2016 in 2 trips.
Approx. 27 miles and 5,140 vertical feet climbed.
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