#mt. elbert

Going to bed the night before, there was some hesitation and doubt about whether we could realistically tackle a Fourteener in the morning. I was feeling nervous because I was still struggling some with the altitude, whereas Nick had been taken with a terrible cold (that was exacerbated by the altitude as well).

When the alarm went off at 5:30, Nick woke me up and told me he wasn’t feeling up to it. I reassured him that it was ok and rolled back over to go to bed, already starting to think of alternate ideas for the day (there was a mining museum in the next town over that I had heard good things about).

About an hour later, at 6:30, he jostled me awake. He had changed his mind and decided he wanted to attempt it after all. The opportunity and timing was too good to pass up. I had felt a little indifferent to it all leading up to the day of the trip, mostly because of how nervous I felt that I wouldn’t be able to complete the whole hike. But with a renewed will to try, I got up and started preparing. We figured we’d just get as far as we could and if either of us felt we couldn’t continue, it was still more than we thought we’d accomplish.

Luckily, we’d prepped everything the night before as if we were going to attempt it, so it didn’t take long to get organized and get going, eating Clif bars as we drove the few minutes closer to the trailhead. We filled up as many water bottles as we could, threw on what felt like a million layers of clothes, and set out, seeing just a couple other cars at the trailhead.

There were two trailheads for the summit hike - the one we used (which had a paved drive up to it), and one higher up that cut off a couple miles of the hike (up a dirt two-track that we later discovered was difficult for even 4WD vehicles). Because of this, it took a couple miles through Aspen forests to even get to the official trail signs higher up and added nearly 800 feet elevation gain to our trek.

Those first few miles drudged on but weren’t too difficult, but as we approached the treeline around 12,000 ft, the elevation gain became more and more steep and intense. It was just constant straight up the mountain with very few moments of relief, though it was never really scrambling or scaling. Just walking straight up at a 45 degree angle forever and ever, it felt. We saw donkey droppings quite a ways up and found out a group had ridden them up quite a ways to camp (we never saw the donkeys!).

Around that same stretch, we started to run into a few other groups of people. First was a woman around my parents’ age who was on her own and was turning back due to the wind. She had said there were two couples ahead of us who were going to attempt it but that the wind was too much for her the higher she got. We stayed and chatted with her for about ten minutes (she had ties to the UP of Michigan) but this was where I first began to have my doubts that I could do this. She was a local who had done Fourteeners before and she was turning back? She said there was a great viewpoint not too much higher up. In my mind I started making a contingency plan where we would see this great view and then turn back.

I kept using the altitude filter on Snapchat to check the altitude, almost obsessively (enjoy some of the awkward selfies I took along the way to trigger the filter). At one point I rested my head on a tall boulder and was this close to telling Nick we had to turn around. I even kept saying I was sorry I wasn’t going to be able to make it. 

As we reached that viewpoint, we stopped in a rocky area that shielded us from the wind to have a snack. Here two mountain bikers approached and shared our spot with us for about 15 minutes. As we chatted with them (they were locals who also had ties to the UP!), the one mentioned that it might be the last nice day of the year to summit and how fortunate we were that this time of year wasn’t as plagued with afternoon thunderstorms. We decided to keep going further. We kept deciding to go just a little further, just a little further, until we were nearing what felt like a “do or die” type of feat. Once we were in the 13,500 ft.-range it seemed like we should just keep going. Why turn around now?

A few more couples/individuals passed us. Eventually, as we got higher up, people started coming back down. And then the people who passed us were coming back down. I will say - the people we interacted with on the trail (probably about 10-15 total the whole day) were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met while traveling. Everyone was so encouraging, even as we struggled just to put one foot in front of the other sometimes and I had to stop to breathe what felt like every ten steps. We were by far the slowest people that day.

Nearing the top, it became even rockier but with more switchbacks, which helped a little. The last 400 ft. over 14,000 just feel like a blur as I look back now. I was in survival mode and could only focus on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. The wind was so fierce it was almost knocking me over, making what little of my skin that was exposed (literally just my cheeks and nose due to sunglasses/hat/gloves, etc.) feel stingy and sore. My nose was running like crazy and even though I applied sunscreen nearly every hour, I could feel the sting of an incoming sunburn due to the higher exposure.

Finally, we saw the sign. We had made it. I fell to my knees and almost felt like crying. I don’t think I’ve ever exerted so much energy with one goal in mind in my entire life. Due to the wind and the time, we didn’t get to spend much time on the summit. We took a few pictures (luckily another couple happened to reach the summit from the other side’s trail right after we did, so we exchanged photos), sat in a cove/nest of rocks for a few moments to rest and eat a quick snack, and then had to begin the long descent.

It took us 7 hours to reach the summit and climb 4,900’ of elevation over 7 miles. The way back would be quicker (4 hours) to do the reverse, but it was not without its own struggles. We made better time, but the gravel-covered parts of the trail were difficult as our feet got more tired and we got more sloppy with our footing. We had neglected to bring the hiking poles due to their weight, but if we were to do it again I would for sure bring them along. Nick’s knees were starting to hurt quite a bit and I slipped and fell on my butt a couple times. We were both exhausted and I had started feeling sicker and sicker too, picking up Nick’s cold in addition to everything else at play.

It seemed to take forever to make it to the junction at the upper trailhead where the dirt road ended. I suggested we take the dirt two-track down to the car so we didn’t have to walk through the woods with roots/rocks, etc. It seemed like a more direct route, too. However, the dirt road was ridiculously beat-up and full of giant craters. In talking to the other people we passed on the trail, most with 4WD vehicles had said even they weren’t able to make it to the second trailhead because of the road conditions, and it showed. After a while, we thought we would see our car around every bend we turned. At one point, there was a foot-deep creek crossing the road that we had to climb up and around to pass (we could have walked through, but soaking our hiking boots at that point didn’t seem ideal).

Finally, after an hour of near silence and exhaustion on the dirt road, we reached the car. It took us 4 hours to get back down, and it was nearing dark. 11 hours total. We immediately made the decision to jump in the car and drive to Leadville, the bigger town about 20 minutes away. Nick had seen a sign for hot showers when we passed through the day before and nothing could have sounded better. The showers ended up being in a sketchy laundromat with no employees present and no functional men’s showers so Nick ended up using the women’s showers with me. Only a few people were inside doing their laundry and it felt a bit like stepping into another world, but at the end we were clean and in fresh clothes.

Newly clean, we headed to a grocery store to grab some more basics since I was starting to feel more sick - kleenex, more cough drops, vaseline for my poor chapped and blistered nose, and extra contact solution. My eyes were starting to hurt a lot from the wind and I was on my third pair of contacts for the trip at that point (while I normally can use a single pair for a month or more at home). Lastly, we found a local pizza place and scarfed down as much as we could but were falling over tired by that point. They accidentally gave us a large instead of a small pizza and we couldn’t take back the half of it we didn’t finish due to the bears, etc.