Mount Harvard, fourteen thousand vertical feet of pure goodness
July 5th, 2008 Posted in travel | No Comments »Mount Harvard @ 14,427 ft
the 3rd tallest peak in Colorado, 4th in contiguous U.S.
First of all our goal was to climb both Mount Harvard & Columbia since there is about a 2 mile ridge hike that connects them. But it did not work out as planned timing wise (as it is a rule of thumb for safety in Colorado to summit before noon). Since this is a 10-15 mile round-trip hike, we probably should have started a couple hours before sunrise. We also did not know that many who do this combination hike (Harvard & Columbia) backpack up into the valley at treeline and spend the night, cutting the hike distance in half.
We stayed at the Collegiate Peaks Campground Thursday night at the base of Mount Yale (Buena Vista is about 2.5-3 hours from Denver). The campground is at about 9800 feet. When we first got there (about 2pm) I was hoping there would be some walk-in’s left and there were, but only 2, and only for 7/3. The rest of the 56 campsites were reserved or taken for the rest of the weekend. Which I should have known better. Lucky for us we were in National Forest so we could camp anywhere along the road, as long as we were 100 feet from any road/water, etc.
We drove into town (Buena Vista) and took a look around, small town, about 1 of everything and nothing more. One saloon, one pizza joint (best pizza in town), one hamburger joint (with great milkshakes)… etc. You get the idea. We also spotted a deer hopping neighbors fences to lay in the grassy shade. All the time meeting wonderful characters in town, one in-particular was a guy in an orange jumpsuit yelling at the deer and chasing it, “just to see what it’ll do”…
So we got a good night sleep, went to bed around 8pm, and woke up around 5am on Friday. We left the campsite around 6am, got to Country Road 365 to find a patch in the road that had way too many ruts and too deep, along with rocks, for the low clearance 200SX of mine to climb…. Not anticipating this (since the guide book and maps did not say 4×4 was needed — which they do say if it is needed), and unwilling to turn around, we decided to park the car and hike in to the trailhead from there, an estimated 3.2 miles, adding another hour to our trip each way (an extra 6.4 miles & 2 hours we did not plan for). We left the car at 7:15am.
We finally arrived at the North Cottonwood Trailhead about 8:15am, (which we were shooting for 6:30-7:00am). We register at the trailhead and head up the mountain.
Summit – 1:30 pm – yikes! So we opted against trying to do Columbia, since it was getting VERY late, although the weather was cooperating, we thought we’d play it safe as it is about 2 hours just to get back down to the treeline.
We get back to the trailhead around 6:15pm, and back to our car at 7:15pm. Overall this was a 12-hour hike for us, about 7 hours to get from car to summit, and 5 hours to get back down. Total distance was an estimated 17 miles with about 5,427 feet of vertical distance up. (9,000 ft to 14,427ft and back down)
So thoroughly exhausted (and dehydrated as we didn’t take water for a 12-hour hike, only 8-hours :P) we decided to have dinner in Buena Vista and head home to sleep on our own bed 🙂 Got home about 11:30pm. But we can say, we left it all on the mountain.
**as a side note, we had no ill effects from altitude, only shortness of breath the last 1000ft or so**
Now for the pictures:
