Colorado 14er #2: Mt. Elbert

We camped outside Leadville (our home away from home) the night before the climb.  It was in the 30s at night but we were nice and toasty in our sleeping bags.  That evening after setting up camp I went for a run along the gravel road that leads to the Elbert and Massive trailheads.  Leadville is my favorite place to run, probably because of my LT100 aspirations.  We dined on turkey dogs and sweet corn and turned in early, only to be interrupted by the folks at the neighboring campsite who were (quite literally) having an orgy (but that's a story for another post!!).

The alarm went off at 4 a.m. the next morning and we were out of bed by 4:30, stumbling around in the cold early morning air, wishing desperately that we had brought stuff to make hot coffee before our climb.  By 5:30 we had gotten our stuff together and were leaving the traihead into the chilly dark morning.  The first hour or so would be spent hiking through the woods by headlamp.  

We hit treeline right around sunrise and the view was stunning.  The sky was absolutely on fire and we stopped for a while to admire the view.  Of course, no picture can do it justice.  

We were the third group to set off up the trail that morning and quickly passed the two groups in front of us.  The hike up was actually not too bad - near the top it started to get steep and rocky and there were places where you would take 10 or 20 steps and then stop to catch your breath.  The climb up was hard, but it was the good kind of hard.  After two or three false summits we finally reached the final climb up.  Because we were the first ones up the mountain we had the summit to ourselves for a good 10 minutes or so before anyone else arrived.  The view was absolutely incredible.  The fact that we were looking DOWN on Mt. Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado, tells you how high we were.  From the top we had an excellent view of nearby La Plata peak and the Bells and a whole bunch of other mountains whose names I don't know.  

 

We took the oppurtunity to get a family photo from the top of Colorado!

Maddie was a proud little peakbagger at the top!  

After 30 or 40 minutes we headed back down the trail. I could NOT believe the number of people who were on their way up. We probably passed a hundred people who were coming up when we were going down and I was so happy we started early to beat the throngs. The trip down was not nearly as fun as the trip up. 4.5 miles straight up means you have to do 4.5 miles straight down and by the time we got to the bottom my legs were quivering. But I was hooked. We are planning another 14er for this weekend. And the next weekend. And the weekend after that. One down, 52 to go.