Mount Evans & Mount Bierstadt, via Sawtooth

My latest adventure included a lot of sitting time along a long and quite road, between Kimball, NE and Ft. Morgan, CO. So my adventure begins.

I talked to Jerry and made plans to climb Mt. Snowmass on the western side of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I took off work early Friday the 21st of September. You would think it was Friday the 13th the way the beginning of the trip went.

I left town around lunch to get over to Jerry's a little earlier in the day, since Snowmass was a 4.5 hour drive from his house. I got about 30 miles on the south side of Kimball when my alternator went out on my pickup. My last cellphone call was to my dad telling him I was stranded between Kimball and Ft. Morgan. An hour and half later, my dad rolls up and pulls my pickup into Ft. Morgan. An hour later and lots of greasy and oily hands, the alternator was changed and I was on the road back to Jerry's.

I got to Jerry's around 6:30pm, a little late. We decided to climb Mt. Evans and Mt. Bierstadt, via the Sawtooth instead of Snowmass. I've been wanting to do a class 3 climb, so it was decided. We packed out stuff and headed out.

We got to Mt. Evans and threw our tents up in a nearby campground. We talked to a few people walking by the campground and they said there was a black bear at a lower campground a night or two before. Jerry decided to put all of our food in a container and throw it up in a tree to keep the bear from finding it. He said he had heard stories of bears tearing into vehicles to get at the food and I guess he didn't want claw marks on his new Nissan. I don't blame him.

After a uneventful night of snoring, we got up and hit the trail sometime around 7:00am. We decided to go up the Northeast Ridge of Mt. Evans, since the road to the top was closed on Sept 3rd. An hour later, we were at the windy and rather chilly peak of another 14'er. We shared the views with five, snowy white mountain goats. What an experience.

We decided to circle around the west side of Evans and caught the backside of the Sawtooth Ridge. We stopped for a minute and sat down. We marvelled at the sight of the Sawtooth. I told Jerry that I had my life insurance paid up but didn't think I wanted to chance it on the Sawtooth. Jerry suggested that we ditch our packs here (along with our water) and walk over to the ridge and where we felt uncomfortable, we would turn around. I agreed.

We started out climb and made it over to where we crossed over to the east side of the ridge. The trail was a lot wider that it appeared at first, though it would have been a lot harder if it was raining out or snow on the ground.

We crossed over to the east side and ditched out jackets in the rocks. Jerry "marked the spot" with his GPS and we finished the climb up to the top of Mt. Bierstadt. We celebrated and started out hike back down to retrieve our jackets. When we got near our jackets, Jerry pulled the lcoation up on the GPS. It said our jackets were 300 miles to the east in Kansas. "CRAP", I old Jerry. We eventually found our jackets by backtracking when we crossed over onto the east side. Don't ask me how we found them with the rock all looking the same, but we did.

We went back over the Sawtooth and grabbed out packs. By this time, Jerry and I were both feeling the effects of not drinking water for at least a good hour. We took a break and at some trailmix and quenched our thirst for water. We decided to descend via Mt. Spalding West Ridge route. Not quite sure how long it took us to descend, but it wasn't long and we were knuckling touching at the vehicle. Another two 14'ers and a 13'er done in one day.

Devils Tower and Mount Rushmore

7-27-07

Today I leave with my two boys on a new adventure. Call me crazy, but I'm taking them to Devil's Tower and Mount Rushmore for the weekend. We are leaving today around 2:30pm or so and heading west past Torrington, WY and then north towards Sundance, WY. Then to Devil's Tower. Once at Devils Tower, we will spend the night and then head over to Mount Rushmore for Saturday. Probably end up at Chadron State Park for Saturday night and head home on Sunday morning.

7-29-07

Well, we made it back in one piece. Here is a link to the pictures that we took. I'll write more later.

Vacation to Devils Tower & Mount Rushmore

14,400' is really high

So this is the beginning of my blog. My brother Jerry told me about this site and how easy it is to make a blog. AND IT'S FREE!! That's a plus.

Jerry moved to Aurora, CO about a month or so ago and has started climbing some of the 14'ers over there. I told him that I wanted to start climbing with him but that I'm not in the best of shape yet. He said, "Just climb the monument (Scottbluff National Monument) for 5 days in a row and carry 15lbs of water in your pack. You'll be ready".

The week before our planned climb was crazy at home. You guessed it, I didn't do a dang thing to get into shape for this climb. The Thursday (7-19-07) before I was supposed to leave, my eldest boy decided to jump over our 6' privacy fence, thus breaking his left arm. We didn't really know it was broken until Friday. That afternoon, I had to close on my 2nd rental at 1:00pm, go to the doctors office with Gage at 2:00pm and make it over to Jerry's by 6:00pm. What a day!

I ended up getting out of town at 3:00pm and made it to Jerry's by 6:15pm. Quick drive. I loaded up with Jerry and headed over to Leadville, CO and then abou 5 miles south of there. We ended up at the campground just below the trailhead and pitched tents there.




We hit the sack about 10:00pm and around 11:00 or 12:00, it started to rain. Not a lot, just enough to keep you from having a sound sleep. At 5:00am, I rolled over and said, "Jerry?" and he said, "yeah". I said, "You ready to go?" and he said "yeah". That was the beginning of our trip. Being the good brother that Jerry is, he got up and made a pot of fresh brew coffee. We threw our stuff in the back of his new Nissan XTerra and made our way up to the trailhead of Mt. Elbert.

We started our hike at around 6:15am and started heading upwards. I felt really strong off the start and thought this wasn't going to be that big of a deal. Jerry gave me some pointers on how to breath and how to step and breath at every step. He said that way, when you take 10,000 steps, you take 10,000 breaths.

We started to climb and took a break at about every hour, or 1000'.




Somewhere near 13,000', the elevation and lack of oxygen that I'm used to hit me. Nearing 14,000', it really hit me. I started to slow and slow and slow some more. With about 300' to go, it was tough for me to keep going. But I wasn't about to drive 3 hours and let my little brother show me up. So I treaded on.


We eventually made it to the top, 3 hours and 45 minutes. Pretty good pace Jerry said. He said if you go 1000 per hour, that's good. We went about 1400' per hour.

When we made it to the top, there were about a dozen or so people already there. One guy said that someone else had ran up in 1.5 hours. Unbelievable.

Jerry and I stayed at the top and took a few pictures, changed our socks and headed back down. Quick trip down, figuring it only took us 2 hours to get off the mountain.

All in all, an excellent trip. I already have planned on making another climb in August and have Jerry on board for that one.