Mt. Elbert, Leadville, CO

Tallest Mountain in Colorado

14,433 feet in elevation, last of the nice switchbacks

9 miles
Mt Elbert 14,433 feet
Starting elevation 10,100' highest elevation 14,433'
Total miles: 97.4

Mt Elbert is the tallest mountain in Colorado. At 14,433 feet it is just twelve feet taller than Mt Massive. We started from the North Mt Elbert trail head at 5:50 am. From this trail head it is only 4.5 miles to the top. Sounds like a walk in the park! We had gone to the ranger station and they suggest using the south trail head approach. Usually, I am all about asking a Ranger for recommendations and getting the local scoop on things, but in this case they have two not so in-tune with the local trail system college students attending the desk. I think the two of them tell everyone about hiking around the local lake no matter what the person inquiring is looking for. We want to know more about the hike up to Mt. Elbert. The two jr. rangers want to send us over to the south Mt. Elbert trail because apparently it is less steep. They have not factored in a few other details. First the trailhead is 30 miles away compared with 10 miles up an "improved road". The trail they suggest is longer and has an additional 200 feet of elevation to gain. Oh and the real kicker is, if you drive anything less than a 4x4 than you will have to park further away and walk an additional 1.1 miles to get to the trail head. Those National Forest Service jr. rangers are a little coo coo. Even I can do the math on that! We plan on going up the steep way.

The trail started out nice and level. That level lasted until we took the picture of the trail head sign. Approximately the first 23 feet of the trail is level. This is where they put the Mt. Elbert information trailhead sign. After reading the signs that are posted you peek around the the board and sort of notice some nice switchbacks. These switchbacks lull you into thinking this will continue to the top. After about a mile of nicely pitched switchbacks the Colorado trail and the Mt Elbert trail split. Here ends the lovely switchbacks. We actually loose elevation winding around the mountain and then begin what the trail will really be like. You stare into the face of a wall that looks steep. It is in truth steep. Breathtaking actually. Yes, lots and lots of breath taking. You just keep going up until your lungs and heart are screaming at you, then you stop and rest, and repeat. When standing and resting we only rested until our heart rate was back under control. Control meaning: I was able to notice a slight pause between one heartbeat and the next. I think if you would have listened to my heart with a stethoscope it might have sounded like a snare drum roll... We tried never to stand to long as getting back into the breath taking zone is then even harder. We take this breath taking approach all the way up through tree line. When we reach the last of the trees, we take a break and have some snacks. As we are snacking we can see the trail etched into the side of the mountain and it looks steep. The first of the three false summits is in view, and it looks very well...breathtaking...I like knowing that there are going to be multiple false summits. That way you are not so overly disappointed when you find way more mountain to go up.

If you enlarge this you can see people coming up the "less steep" way
They are walking on the ridge.

Up

More up



More up

We get back started and slowly make our way to the top. At one point we are wondering if we go to the right or left. We choose left. Next thing we are putting away our hiking poles and hauling ourselves up and over large boulders. The hike has now turned into a climb. I personally don't remember reading anything about scrambling and climbing up any part of this mountain. We stop to share our misery. As we are having our sharing moment we see a highway of people moving on a trail about 50 feet below us. What they are hiking on looks much like a super highway and here we are standing clinging to the boulders. What! how did this happen? We down climb to get on the super highway. Ah yes, much better!

Last 800 feet

Making it to the saddle we are encouraged by people who are coming down. They all have encouraging words, saying we are almost there. Sure, why it is just another 800 feet and we will be there. Kathi is slowly melting, her happiness meter has fallen to unhappiness. I think she used the phase that I coined last year, "you call this fun?". This clearly does not sounds like Kathi! We pull off the super highway and do some self medicating, we eat Luna bars. Food always helps.

A little food and we are off taking in our last 800 feet of breathtaking views and are standing at the very top of Colorado. Now this is were the breathtaking can take on a better and kinder definition. Ridge tops of mountains for as far as you can see. Now this is truly, stunning breathtaking views!

Kathi tried to sign us in on the paper in the the special shatter proof container, but someone had lost the screw on top and the enclosed paper was mostly soggy bits and pieces of scraps. Seems as though most people had signed whatever tid bit of paper they had jammed into their pockets written their names on it and then shoved it into the tub. People do not usually carry paper with them on these types of hikes so there were lots of wrappings from food people had consumed with their names on them. This seemed rather anticlimactic so we just took some pictures and called it proven as we were holding up the dated sign... A guy who had followed us from the parking lot and then passed us while he stayed on the super highway and we got momentarily off trail and went four wheel scrambling on the boulders, had brought up to the top of Mt Elbert a dated sign to hold while taking pictures. He happily shared it with all who wanted to hold it up for a a quick picture. We also found the survey marker and took a shot of that.



Sign in tube with just bits and scraps
Notice there is only one cloud



July 12th 2012



Survey marker



Several people at the top, Clouds gathering we have only spent
30 minutes at the top.  Things change fast up here :) 

View from on top

Looking towards Mt. Massive

As with all good hikes we get in some good chit chat at the top. We meet two men from Minnesota, one from Duluth the other from Minneapolis. They were on a mountain biking and hiking week of vacation without their families. They of course were trying to do everything that they could fit into the week. The guy from Duluth gave his personal account of the recent flooding that has taken place in Duluth with 9 inches of rain in 8 hours or so. Yikes. He said the road around his place was just newly laid and totally washed out. So he and his neighbors used the washed out gravel from the new road and built berms around their houses to keep their houses from flooding. Fast thinking.

Clouds were gathering so we headed out after spending a half hour chit chatting at the top. Just as we were leaving a guy wearing skimpy running shorts came bounding up to the top. The two Minnesotans along with Kathi and I had a good time commenting on that outfit! Kathi shot a picture to share with us all. We were wondering where he might carry his insurance card just in case he hurt himself while running on the rough terrain? I can't imagine running up this mountain and I just as sure can't even dream of running down it. If I ran down the mountain It would only be a matter of time before I became a tumbling object. Oh the thought of that makes my knees and feet shudder.

Runner with only skimpy shorts and a water bottle

Just as we arrived at tree line, it began to rain, so we tucked under a pine tree and put on our rain gear. The rain in the area lasted about 10 minutes. We were able to take our gear off after about a half hour. We have so far been very lucky to avoid being caught above tree line in a thunderstorm this year. We had the not so pleasurable experience to be in one of Colorado's famous thunderstorms and there are no words for the terror and panic you feel when you know you are in the exact spot the storm is in...

With such a " short" hike we arrived back to the car by 2:30 just in time to have the second half of our lunch. Personally satisfied we drove off to do the second half of the driving mining tour. To liven up the Silver Kings tour I think they should include pictures of what the mines looked like during their heyday. The brochure provides a short historical background and facts about each of the mines along with a number map and directions on how to get around. So you drive to the mine and read the narrative and all you see is some pile of mining tailings and a some timbers sticking out of the pile at odd angles. Perhaps including what the mine looked like back when it was operating would really perk up the tour... But sure as we drove around it was amazing to think that they were able to find gold, silver, lead, zinc and what all else and get it out of the ground and off to market. The pictures in the Leadville history book sitting on the coffee table back at our cabin had some nice pictures of the different mines and that was rather helpful in imagining what all took place here. 

Front entrance of cabin

I usually talk about where we are staying. This year we are staying in a miners cabin that was built during the heyday of the mining craze in Leadville. It is very cute and has an interesting feel to it. The one of the interesting "feels" is the bathroom. It makes me chuckle every time I am in that room. I am 5'6" and can sit on the toilet that is, if I be very careful not to bang my knees on edge of the tub. But anyone taller than me will have to sit side saddle. The tub is an iron cast, claw foot shorty tub. It is just large enough to stand in. Forget sitting in it because it is too small for that, just enough room to stand. Stepping out after taking a shower is an adventure. You have to hang on and step over the tall sides of the tub and then reach way down with your foot. The floor of the tub is around 10 inches above the floor. And as you might imagine with the toilet being so close you have to be mighty careful of where you put your foot down lest you take another rinse in the toilet! I thought you might enjoy that tidbit!



Back entrance and deck of cabin

The owner of the cabin has a house in front of our cozy cabin. They have a fenced in yard where they let their 6 chickens free range around the yard. Those of you that don't have free range chickens are really missing out on some live, but slow entertainment. We had the pleasure of watching them every night.

We are headed back to Denver tomorrow so we spend some time trying to find a suitable hike to finish off the vacation. The road we want to take is closed so we spend about two hours reading and researching our last hike. Thankfully we have Internet and our hiking books, we spend the night considering our options, travel time to the hike, hiking time, and driving time. We make a choice, but would prefer to go on a different hike, but think the drive it me will just be too much.

Tune in tomorrow for our last hike.
How are your virtual blisters doing? I have managed to keep my blisters in check this year. Only two, and very manageable. I have finally found how I need to pre wrap to prevent them rather than after they have blossomed... Hmmm it took me till 50 to figure that out.