14′er

Views From the Top

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve finally had a chance to hike to the top of several of the highest points in the Rockies.  This is a goal I’ve been wanting to work on since moving out West.  It’s one thing to go on an afternoon hike… or even a full day hike in the foothills and various areas of the varying mountain ranges.  It’s something completely different and personally satisfying to make it to the top of a 14,000 + foot mountain.

There are over 750 peaks just in the state of Colorado that max out at over 13,000 feet.  There are only  53 peaks that reach the 14,000 foot or higher mark.  Mt. Elbert is the highest in the state topping off at 14,433 feet.  Despite the fact it is the highest in the state, it is also rated as one of the easiest of the 14′ers to summit.

The first 14′er that we tackled wasn’t Elbert though… it was La Plata Peak.  It is the 5th highest in the state and tops out at 14,336 feet.  It is also one of the tougher ones.  The round trip hike is 10 miles and the elevation gain is 4,500 feet.  That means that over the course of 5 miles, you are hiking (and sometimes climbing) around 1,000 feet per mile.  For those of you that haven’t done much hiking of the 13′ers and 14′ers… that’s quite a bit.

The view from the top was breathtaking.  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so dramatic.  I was pretty worn out by the time I made it there… but it was soooo worth it.  Check out my pictures of the hike.

Anytime I’ve done a major hike before, the trip back down is by far the worst part.  It seems like it takes forever to make it back to the trail head, even though you usually make it back down in the 1/2 the time it took to get up.  There’s just something about it mentally that makes it seems so much longer than you remember.

The following weekend we decided to tackle another 14′er.  However, this time we chose to do the Torrey’s Peak and Gray’s Peak combo, effectively knocking out 2 of them without starting from the bottom for each.  Both of these peaks are right next to each other and separated by only a 1/2 mile.  You can decide which one you want to hike first and then follow a path down a connecting saddle to the other.  We started with Gray’s Peak which is the highest peak on the Continental Divide (in the United States) at 14,270 feet.  Once again, the view from the top was awesome.  You could see all of the major ski resorts and runs.  You could see all the way down in to the flat open space of Park County (South Park).  After a few minutes of soaking in the view and resting, we made the slight descent down the saddle and back up to Torrey’s Peak which is only 3 feet lower at 14,267 feet.  Again, after a brief rest and some photos… we made our way back down to the trail head.  This hike was by far a much easier adventure than the La Plata.  The Torrey’s and Gray’s combo is very popular with a lot of tourists and folks who want to say they have made it to the top of a 14′er, but there’s really not much to it.  Over the course of the whole day, I think we passed well over 200-300 people on the trail.  A lot of them had small children and dogs.  I’m glad we can check those 2 off of our list, but they are pretty weak, in comparison, to a lot of the other 14′ers ahead of us, I’m afraid.  Still we have 3 down… and 50 to go.