My
brother-in-law lives in Buena Vista Colorado. Their house, located
at 9,000 ft., is right next to the Collegiate Peak Wilderness.
There are 8 fourteen's in the wilderness. The camp they run is
on the foot of mount Princeton, another fourteener. Near by is
Mt. Harvard, 14,414 (the third highest in CO). Mt. Elbert 14,433
(the highest in CO) is only 30 miles to the North.
So,
while on a family vacation, I climbed mount Harvard and mount
Colombia 14,073. The trailhead is just 5 miles from their house,
so I had my wife drop me off at the trailhead with my bike, and
I biked back at the end of the hike. Starting from the North Cottonwood
trailhead, I took the Horn Fork Basin trail to Bear Lake and the
base
of Mount Harvard. Starting on a big field of boulders, I climbed
to the saddle on the West ridge of Harvard. Then following a well
worn use-trail I got to the summit block. An easy 15 ft. class
2 scramble lead to the summit itself. The view from the summit
was great. Mount Yale to the South, Oxford, Belford, and Missouri
to the North and Colombia to the South East, all fourteeners.
Colombia is connected to Harvard by a 2 mile long ridge. This
makes bagging both peaks together an attractive proposition. The
register on Harvard which was housed in a 2" plastic pipe
was missing. The pipe itself was broken. Harvard is a very popular
destination. There were several other groups climbing the mountain
on the same day.
It
was still early enough. I started from the trailhead at 7:30 AM
and made the 7 mile, 4500 ft. trip in just 4:30 hours. So I figured
I had enough time to bag Colombia as well. Unfortunately, the
ridge between Harvard and Colombia which looked like an easy way
to get the 2 peaks is a nasty pile of rocks, scree, and snow.
The guide book that I used warn against taking the ridge and recommended
taking a much lower rout that avoids all the rocks, but I ignored
it -- Big mistake. It took 3.5 hours to get to the summit of Colombia.
I signed the register and headed down. I was back at the trailhead
by 6:30 PM, jumped on my biked and headed home. It was about 15
miles and 5400 ft. elevation gain hike; about half of the hike
was off trail.
While
on the summit of Harvard, I notice a few drops on my face. The
clouds that were very high in the morning, were descending and
already covered the summits of Yale and Princeton to the South.
I decided to ignore that and continued to Colombia. The few droplet
turned into occasional drizzle, and by the time I summitted Colombia,
it was a continues drizzle. This made the climb and descent quit
tricky as the rocks were getting slippery. The drizzle was not
too bad though, and the visibility was still excellent. The drizzle
turned into rain when I was back on the trail, and it kept raining
all the way home. Needless to say, I was wet.
