From North Cottonwood Creek Trailhead
| Mount Harvard and Mount
Columbia were my first fourteeners of 1999. At
first, it seemed like a bit of a chore to climb these two peaks because they were
fourteeners; I probably would not have opted to climb these peaks if it hadn't been
for their height. They're not very exciting. However, this trip
turned out (as usual) to be a lot of fun although it was very long and difficult. A co-worker, Bill Snodgrass, and I drove out to Buena Vista for dinner and then along the North Cottonwood Creek road to find a place to car camp. There were plenty of spots along this road and we found a nice one about a quarter of a mile from the trailhead. For fun, we hiked up to the trailhead to check things out then spent the rest of the evening filtering water, drinking wine, and talking. We went to bed around 10pm. I slept well and woke up around 5:30. I spent 30 minutes getting my things ready and then Bill got up around 6:15. We packed up his jeep and drove up to the trailhead. We began hiking around 7:20 am. We started well below treeline (typical of the Sawatch) at about 9500 feet. The trail is in excellent shape and parallels North Cottonwood Creek for a two miles or so. You cross the creek twice over solid bridges. After the second bridge, you come to a "Y" in the trail. Right heads up to Horn Fork Basin and Mount Harvard. The other leads to Kroenke Lake, one of the routes to Mount Yale. |
North Cottonwood Creek Trail |
 |
We hiked through forest
for about four miles total then finally emerged in the open and had our first views of
Mount Harvard (left). Mount Columbia was to our right but was nothing much more than
a huge scree slope. We knew this would be our route down Columbia. I knew that
wasn't going to be any fun. Mount Harvard is basically a giant bulk of a mountain. There's not much definitive shape to it. However, it's the third highest in the state. In the picture to the left, the summit is the highest point on the left-hand side. Horn Fork Basin is quite a large basin. The trail snakes around and eventually wends it's way up to the slopes of Mount Harvard. After taking a short break, we headed back up the trail. |
| After winding a little
closer to Mount Columbia, the trail follows a fairly swift stream. You have to
eventually cross the stream. A couple of trails split along the creek and formed
various stream crossings. We picked
the one that seemed to have had the most traffic. At another stream crossing made easy by large boulders strategically placed, I took this picture (right) of Mount Yale with some variety of marigolds in the foreground. I took a couple of slides of this shot as well. I basically had to lay down in the grass to get as close as possible to the flowers. We eventually arrived underneath Mount Harvard and headed for the saddle on the west side of the basin. This involved crossing a couple of snowfields. I didn't have my gaiters and occasionally my boot would punch through and bits of icy snow would fill up in my shoes. I had to dig my finger in my shoes to remove the snow. This got to be a pain, but eventually we made it to the ridge. I became more and more tired as we slogged our way up the slopes of Mount Harvard. When we were about 100 feet below the summit, an angry wren started dive-bombing us! I suppose we were close to it's nest but because we didn't know where we were, we simply zoomed past it's area. |
Mount Yale |
|
Bill and I on the summit |
We headed up the west
ridge for the final 60 or 70 feet of the summit which actually included some fun 3rd class
scrambling. We encountered another hiker who was sort of scared of the
final pitch but we led him up and he made it fine.
There were two other guys on top of the peak when we arrived. No one else was heading over to Columbia and it started getting
quite dark around us, though it was fairly clear over Columbia. We spent about 15 or 20 minutes on the summit taking pictures and talking. At one point, I had Bill take a slide of me. I removed my hat for the picture and after he snapped it, I noticed it slowly disappearing underneath a rock! A marmot was trying to steal it. I jumped down of my perch quickly and reached underneath the rock into a small cave and felt around for the hat, expecting a bite any second! Finally, I felt it and I pulled on it but the marmot didn't want to let go. Finally, it came loose. The marmot popped out a few seconds later wondering what had happened to his new prize. |
| The hike along Harvard's
ridge included some easy scrambling. We then turned south and started heading for
the infamous Columbia-Harvard ridge. As we swung to the south and saw the ridge
directly in front of us, we heard the fateful rumbling of thunder. I couldn't
believe it. I was hoping that the thunder and lightning would hold off to allow us
to summit Columbia but it appeared that that would not be the case. This was like
deja vu to Bill who had climbed these two peaks about 10 years earlier in almost identical
circumstances. There wasn't much we could do though except continue on. At
this point, we were about as far as possible from the jeep. To get back, we'd have
to march forward; there was no escape route at this point. We opted not to do the ridge directly because we were short of time and heard that it was difficult and messy. Thankfully, the thunder didn't return. It remained dark, cloudy, snowy, and rainy for the rest of the day. But, the important thing was that there was no thunder and lightning. So, we took the standard route and dropped down the east side. We should have dropped down sooner but instead descended a nasty, loose gully. I slipped a couple of times - what a drag. Here's the view (right) of the ridge after dropping down. We crossed through the snowfields and eventually arrived at a bench with tarns and wildflowers where we took a break. At this point, I was really really tired. We had about 700 feet more to arrive at the top of Mount Columbia. It took us quite a while and a couple of more breaks but we did indeed finally make after about an hour. |
Harvard Columbia Ridge |
|
Me on top of Columbia |
We arrived on the top of
Mount Columbia in snow flurries and thick, low-setting clouds. In this picture (left) you
can see Mount Harvard in the background. We stayed on the summit for about 15
minutes. We signed the register and then just lay there for a while. The
elevation was done, but we had that huge scree slope to descend. Even after
descending the slope, there was still another 4 miles remaining to get back to the car.
And it was about 5:45pm. Well, after heading down the ridge a while, we
started down. We should have dropped down after another hundred yards to enjoy a
little bit more of a grassy slope but we didn't. I started out in front of Bill and
slid, slipped, and slopped my way down to the bottom. As I neared the bottom,
several thick, low-setting clouds moved in and out of the area. It was pretty neat.
I took a picture
of Bill descending the scree slope with the summit of Columbia shrouded in the clouds.
At the bottom, we changed our socks, rested again, and headed off. I went ahead looking for a trail that I expected to find leading back to the main trail in Horn Fork Basin. I found it right away and it took about 10 minutes for us to get back to the main trail. The main trail felt like the autoban after traversing the ridge and descending the scree slope. My legs were trembling from that ordeal but I had my second wind as we arrived at the trail. I zoomed back down to the car ahead of Bill and had a chat with another hiker for about 30 minutes until Bill showed up. We left the trailhead around 9:50. We stopped for a fast dinner-to-go in Silverthorne and arrived back at the Blake Street Terrace building around 1 am where my car was parked. We both arrived back at home around 1:30 am. This was a great trip although it was very very long and difficult. |
