"Elbert"
The 20th of August, 2013.
I'd been planning it for weeks, a four day weekend from work. My goal was to do two 14ers in this time period. The first, Mt. Elbert, on the 20th of August; and the second, Longs Peak, on the 22nd of August 2013.
I got off from work, early shift, at 4:30 PM and waited to go down the mountain to town. I had spent hours planning this trip during the week, and hours more packing gear and food for it. I tried to get others to go along, but to no avail. I guess it didn't sound appealing to climb Colorado's highest mountain on your day off from work.
I grabbed my backpack, my boots and my trekking poles and jumped in the car for a two and a half hour drive southwest to the Leadville area. I pulled into the parking lot for the trail head to S. Mt. Elbert a little after dark. I downed a bottle of water to get re-hydrated from the long drive, and laid the seats of my Subaru Outback down. I crawled into the back with my 3 jackets on, and tried to sleep. I didn't have a sleeping bag out there in Colorado. I hadn't needed one. I spent all of my free days doing long day hikes, and had not yet been camping. Finally after an hour I feel asleep.
I awoke at 2:45 AM the next morning to the alarm on my phone. I downed an orange, and a candy bar for breakfast. I was hungry, and I hadn't even started the hike yet. I didn't know a whole lot about doing a 14er in Colorado. Mt. Elbert is one of fifty four 14ers in the state. It's an uphill battle from the South Elbert trail head at about 9,600 ft. above sea level. It rises to a maximum height of 14,440 ft. from the top of which you can sea Colorado's second highest peak Mt. Massive 14,421. The top is about 4.5 miles from this trail head. There is also another popular route directly to N. Mt. Elbert which is only about four miles. I didn't feel like climbing over 4,000 ft. up in only three and a half miles, so I chose the S. Mt. Elbert trail. I also chose it because it is not as popular, or tourist overrun, as the northern trail head..
I started the hike around 3:30 AM. I turned on my headlamp, and miraculously it worked! I hadn't tested it out before (not smart), and was thrilled that it worked. I needed it. It was a cloudy pitch black night on the 20th of August 2013. I wanted to give this a shot though. I had trained by doing three peaks the previous weekend. The 12,500 ft. Mt. Chapin, the 13,000 ft. Mt. Chiquita, and the 13,500 ft. Ypsilon Mountain. Chiquita and Ypsilon were my first "13ers", and my first time to have set my feet at that height before. Chiquita was doable, but once I got near the summit of Ypsilon I started cutting out. The oxygen level was a lot lower up there. I honestly wasn't sure whether I'd make it to the top of Mt. Elbert or not, but I had to try I just had to..
Mt. Elbert is supposedly one of the easier 14ers, and I thought it a good place to start in my path upwards to my ultimate goal of the season, Longs Peak. I'm glad that I gave it a shot. It was tough, and a good training hike for other tougher peaks. Plus it was taller than Longs Peak (if only by less than two hundred feet), but it was not as difficult. It was also the highest mountain in Colorado, the 2nd highest in the lower forty eight, and the 14th highest mountain in the United States. Twelve of the thirteen higher mountains are in Alaska. It is also an ultra prominent peak. All these things sounded like something to boast about afterwards. I only slightly underestimated the time and effort it would take to get me there..
Towards the beginning, the trail was fairly easy. It went up at an extremely steep grade, but no "mountaineering" was involved. There was an actual trail all the way to the top of this thing, or so I thought..
As I gained elevation, the trail seemed to disappear. All of the sudden it wasn't there anymore. This had already happened once, down below treeline. I was hiking up the four wheel drive road, and walked off of it in the dark. Luckily I found my way back after nearly stepping over a cliff edge, and wandering through the nail ridden remains of some old barn on the side of the mountain. This time, however, above tree line I kept searching for the trail. I was the only one doing the south route this particular morning, or at least I was the only one this far along in the early morning. After a while, somewhere between twelve thousand and thirteen thousand feet, the trail just petered out. I kept on going. Eventually after looking and retracing steps I just decided to blaze my own path up the mountain. To me this meant zig-zagging upwards towards something which looked like a ridge about a thousand feet above me. I had to avoid stepping in holes, or sending stones plummeting down the mountain below me. I did this for about an hour. During this hour I only gained about 800 feet, I turned my ankle slightly several times, bruised my shins, and scratched up my arms pretty good. Later I discovered that I had also blackened a few toe nails.. Not bad for blazing my own path though.
Eventually I found the trail again. Somewhere just below 13,000 feet. The sun had just come up, and I was sitting on a ledge, the first of many false summits. I sat down and drank a quart of water, and ate some trail mix I had made. I watched the sun climb higher in the sky as it was about 6:30 in the morning now. I hadn't talked to, or even seen anyone, since about 6:00 PM the previous day when I stopped to fill my tank with gas on the road out of Estes Park. Here I was only about twelve hours later, sitting with my legs dangling over the edge of a precipice, watching the sun rise over a lake far below. It was a really peaceful feeling sitting there all alone 2.5 miles above the ocean..
After a while, I finally got up the nerve to continue onward. A few hundred more feet above me I connected onto the ridge leading towards the S. Elbert summit. I slowly climbed to the top of one false summit after another. It was mentally and physically fatiguing, but the mental part was worse in this case. Every quarter mile I would gain almost 200 feet in elevation, only to lose it as I had to recede down yet another false summit. Then the whole process would just repeat. Finally I could see a pole sticking up on a small rocky hill on the ridge. I made it to the top of the hill and discovered that the pole had t-shirts wrapped around it. I figure that this must have been the Coloradoan version of the Himalayan prayer flags. This was the summit of S. Mt. Elbert at slightly over 14,000 ft. I didn't spend much time here, I wanted to keep going to N. Elbert.
I continued along the ridge, and finally could see curving to the right and rising another four hundred to five hundred feet above; the summit of N. Elbert. I kept hiking over more false summits, this was getting old at this point.., and finally I made it to the base of this final hill. I was exhausted and could hardly breath, but I kept going. I wanted it bad. Also, I still hadn't talked to anyone for almost fourteen hours. I longed for some company on my adventure. I could see people already at the top.
It ended up taking another half an hour to make it to the top. It was around 8:30 AM when I finally set foot on the highest spot in Colorado. I think it was well worth the trouble. I could clearly see to Mt. Massive, and many other neighboring peaks. Some of these others were also 14ers. I could for tens of miles into the distance. It was incredible! Once I read in a history book, about first peoples in America, the quote, "When I was a boy the old chiefs used to say, as soon as you climb a high mountain, the highest you can find, do not stop halfway and look back. Climb till you reach the top. There you can breathe deep and look into all the valleys. Then you can say, 'I have seen.'" I think that's how I felt at that instant, at the top of my first 14er, even if it wasn't my most difficult mountain.
At the top, there was a family of hikers. They all looked to be in incredible physical condition. Here I was a flat-lander, from Indiana. I could hardly breath, or say much more than, "hi..", between gasps of air. There must have been a difference between myself, who had stayed in Colorado for about three months; and those that had lived their lives there. There must be something different in their blood, some type of super-human lung capacity which I could only dream about. Finally after resting for ten minutes or so, I asked one one of the women if she would take my picture holding up the, "Mt. Elbert: 14,440", sign. She gladly obliged. Then I scarfed down another cereal bar, and drank another half-liter of water. I was off on my decent down to the N. Elbert trail head. I had decided upon descending to the north trail head, because it was shorter. I knew that I'd have to hitch a ride back to the south trail head.
This route, was simpler. It was also much steeper. Already I was exhausted, but I made good time. The trail was so steep, that I almost slipped and slid down the mountain several times. At least there was no technicality, or hands and feet climbing needed. Eventually I made it down below tree line on the other side of the mountain. I rested again just below the trees for some water and an apple. Some of the people from the summit passed me by at this point. I kept going down, and at around 11,000 feet I came to a fork. The main trail just ended and merged with another trail. The sign pointed up to where I came from, towards the north summit. Having not come this way, this was of no use to me. Which way was I supposed to go, now that I was here? One direction led to the parking lot. The other led towards who knows where. I chose the left trail..
Here I admit was my second major mistake of the day. The first dumb mistake was, "blazing my own path" eight hundred feet up earlier that day when I day lost the trail. Looking back on that, I already decided it was a foolish idea. I was out there by myself, and I didn't have a climbing helmet. I could have slipped and fallen. That was unlikely, but certainly possible. My second major mistake of the day was going left on this trail. I walked for about twenty minutes, thinking that I must be nearing the parking lot. Well, it turned out that I actually was heading back towards the S. Elbert trail head, the long way. I met someone after I crossed a bridge on a creek. He was filtering water from the stream and had a backpacking pack on. I sad hello, and kept walking. After another five minutes the trail seemed to be going up. At this point I wanted to be going down towards a parking lot. This was a problem..
I retraced my steps across the bridge and eventually caught up with the backpacker. He said that this was a portion of the Colorado trail - a five hundred mile long backpacking trail - and I said, "Okay, so I was going the wrong way?" He said, "Yes". As a man, it's sometimes incredibly difficult to ask for directions, and even worse to admit that you were wrong. I'm glad that I asked though. I hiked the half mile back to the sign which pointed up towards the Elbert summit. I took the other path this time..
I walked about a quarter mile down this path, I had lost about 40 minutes going the wrong way; and the relatively flat trail started to descend rapidly again with a significant number of short switchbacks. Eventually I came out at the bottom. Instead of ending up at a parking lot, I was at a bridge crossing a creek. I walked across the bridge and came out on a road. There were two directions to go. Not again! I went left..
Well..don't go left. I walked about a third of a mile and ended up in a parking lot. The only problem was there were only two cars in the lot, and the sign read, "Mt. Massive Trail head". Crap..... I waited.. I was out of water. Not good!
Eventually someone came down to the trail head. It only took about twenty minutes. I was lucky. I admit it. It was a woman with her dog. I told her that I was lost. She gave me some water from a bottle in her car to refill mine. I asked for a ride. She asked where I came from. I told her that I'd started at the S. Mt Elbert trail head at 3:30 AM that morning. I'd hiked to the top and down the other side; over the entire ridge line. Accounting for the mile and a half of wrong turns, I'd probably hiked 12 miles. It was now 2:00 PM. She told me a story that she'd been lost on Elbert last year with her boy friend. She said that they had been lost for hours upon end. They had even called the forest service for rescue. The reply that they had given her was something like, "Sorry mam, we only help hikers that are in danger, not those that are just lost". She got in a thunder storm, but was below tree line at that point. They'd spent fourteen hours being lost. Eventually they made it back. She sympathized with my story. That was not my strategy, but it worked. I guess sometimes it might be alright to admit that you were lost. Being a man, I would only only resort to admitting this, 'mistake' as a last resort. She offered me a ride.
Twenty minutes and a fifteen mile car ride later, I was back at the South Elbert Trail head. There my car was, all alone now, sitting right where I had left it. I rested and changed out of my smelly socks and shirts, and climbed into the car. I drove back to the town of Leadville. Before I knew it I was on the other side of Leadville. I hadn't passed a whole lot of restaurants along the way. I was famished! I stopped at the only nearby station, filled up the gas tank, and bought a quart sized Gatorade. 14ers call for massive amounts of food and liquid to replace all the calories that you burn during the climbs. I drove back into town and stopped at the subway. I purchased a foot-long sub and packed it with as much meat, cheese and vegetables as possible. Two thirds of it was gone within six minutes, along with a bag of chips and half of the quart-sized Gatorade. I had meant to take a picture of my scrumptious sandwich, but now there were only a few large bites left. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a photo of the remnants of the once great sandwich. I texted the photo to my mom, "Hi mom! I made it to the top of my first 14er today. This was my victory sandwich". The rest was gone in another three minutes, and I commenced upon my 2.5 hour car-journey back to Estes Park. "..Upward and forever upward..", on to the next challenge.
~Nick Whittemore
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| View from 12,000 ft. |
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| Second old nail-ridden barn 12,400 ft. |
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| Foot Dangling 13,200 ft. |
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| "Feet" Dangling 13,700 ft. Ridge to S. Elbert. |
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| Summit 14,440 ft. |
