Cathedral Lake and Electric Pass

July 13, 2011  Cathedral Lake and Electric Pass   10.1 miles     Total miles 49.7

3600 feet of elevation gain today

He Climbed Cathedral Mountains, he saw silver clouds below

He saw everything as far as you can see…

Rocky Mountain High , John Denver

When we get out of bed this morning the skies look dark, but weather .com said it will be a mostly sunny day.  While eating breakfast and packing up the dark clouds move away and revel blue skies!  Our drive to the trail head is mostly down a paved road and only a mile up a 4WD road that is rather tame after yesterday’s wild ride.  We are the only car at the trail head and it is 8 am.  The book said if you are planning hiking up Electric pass you should start early and plan on being off of the pass by noon to avoid afternoon thunderstorms.  It is called electric pass as it is struck by lightening more often than any other peak in the area.  This is due to the metal content in the mountain.  Whatever it is, I think being below tree line during any storm is a smart idea!  When we leave from the car we know there will be some snow up by the pass but do not know if it will be passable.

The trail itself pretty much mirrors the rushing cascading waterfalls that tumble down the valley.  We have some good views of the water and stop to enjoy the show as the trail is up, up and more up. The views of this hike include lots of flowers to look at and some good tops of my boots.  This is because I am sucking some wind!  We try to make a turtle proud and travel up the trail at a reasonable speed. We try to keep our heart rates somewhere in the 80% to 85% of maximum heartbeats per minute while going up hill.  We have heart rate monitors on that are set to our age, gender, weight and such.  We have them to monitor our heart rate and make adjustments to our speed so we can be efficient.  Or in terms we all can understand, so we get the best gas mileage J 

Cathedral Lake is the blue lake at the bottom of this basin.

We stop occasionally to look at the views, but continue to climb steadily.  At one point about a mile and half in we are passed by some lady and guy.  They are on some Billy goat juice and are cruising up the hill.  I think they must be locals or they had a breakfast of Red Bull.  This trail is serious up!  We get to watch the Billy goat hikers zip up this section of 8 short but very steep switch backs.  These switchbacks make the up we have just gone seem like child’s play!  We turtle on and reach the sign indicating the junction for the Electric pass or turn to Cathedral Lake.  Since we have not seen any snow up to this point we decide to continue on up towards the pass.  We head up to a high basin and are treated with a view of the large open bowl filled with green not white snow.  We are able to see the trail heading up to the saddle.   Perfect this is better than we had hoped!



We think we need to scamper  through this keyhole but would need to go through the snowfield which is just off of the picture on the right side.  The slope of the scree and talus is very steep and slippery.



Picture of Electic Peak.  The pass is just to the left of the snow field at the top.

The switch backs are long and steady, the steps never feel hard, but the gaining of 3600 feet of elevation means the loss of available oxygen in the air.  No amount of cardio conditioning can account for working hard at 13000 feet…  The long sweeping switchbacks are totally above tree line and you get overwhelming views of the immediate area, but also of the Rockies for a hundred miles.  From the saddle of Leahy Mountain we can see hundreds of miles.  It is all of the peaks from the Collegiate Peaks.  We can also see the deep purple of the Maroon Bells and the cap of Capitol Mountain (Yes, the one from yesterday’s adventure).  Capitol Mountain is one of Colorado’s 14er’s and we can see the warren in trail that hikers and climbers take to summit that mountain.  Standing where I am and looking at Capitol Mountain, I have no desire to climb it…  It looks astonishingly steep! 

Lunch at a more reasonable angle.

While standing at the saddle two guys join us.  We are chatting while putting more wind breaking clothes on as it is cold and windy up here.  We are currently standing at 13100 feet and the official pass is 13600.  We have some more climbing to do.  The trail evaporates into a primitive track across loose talus and scree and sometimes totally disappears!  The four of us climb and scramble up to a snowfield and try to find a visual way around the snow field.  The loose scree and angle in which we are positioned on makes for some trip evaluation opportunities.  We are now at 13450 feet up in elevation.  This means we are within 50 feet of the top.  As best as we can tell we have around .2 or possibly .3 miles to go.  No one volunteers to be the first person to lay it on the line.  We sit and weigh the accomplishment of gaining 50 feet with the great views we already have to siding or perhaps tumbling down the loose scree and talus… 

I won’t tell if you don’t tell.  We were 50 feet shy of the official pass.  I think we can count it as achieved…  We turn and carefully find our way back down to a more reasonable angle of repose.  Here we sit and look at the views and have half of a lunch.  From our perch we can spot several groups of people making their way up the long switch backs to get up to the pass.  The basin bowl is so big that the people look like ants.

The skies have gained in cloud coverage, but this must be one of those select Colorado days where the clouds are not gathering up to rain monsoon style.  They are just enough to make the whole scene look like the perfect day!

Cathedral Lake with Cathedral Mountain in the back

We had on down to cathedral lake and find a lovely rock to plunk our selves on to enjoy the day some more plus we need to eat the second half of our lunch.  We are so blessed with a perfect weather day and the views of this hike make it a natural decision to return to this spot again. 

I can see why John Denver and other song and poem writers would have written about these Rocky Mountains and there love for walking in them.  Days like today are good for the soul