Harvard and Columbia

Helen and I drove to the North Cottonwood trailhead on Friday night and found plenty of parking and a decent camp spot for the night. I had been worried that the Labor Day weekend would bring crowds to the 14ers, including Mounts Harvard and Columbia. While more people showed up later that night and Saturday, we didn’t see the crowds I expect swarmed up the Front Range summits.

About 5:40am on Saturday morning we left the trailhead and started up the trail, illuminating the route with our headlamps. Through the trees we stole glimpses of the colorful sky and were able to shutdown the headlamps around treeline. Looking back down the valley we could see Mount Yale collecting first light.

We passed a few hikers on our march toward the sunlight, which was slow to reach into this valley. The ridge line between Harvard and Columbia delayed the morning light for much of our ascent. Eventually, we met the sun and shed layers as the hiked up wind-protected slopes toward Harvard’s summit.

The views downward were more spectacular than those above us. Bear Lake and the Big Horn Basin with Mount Yale behind presented a fine view.

The alpine vegetation was preparing for fall. Wildflowers were less numerous and some plants had begun turning red.

We picked our way along the trail which faded out just shy of the summit. Hunting for an easy, class 2, route through the rocks we made sure Torrey could follow us to Colorado’s third highest summit. From the top we had reminiscing views of the 14ers north of us. Oxford, Belford and Missouri were 14ers we’d climbed last month.

With this three hour climb of Mount Harvard, I can now claim to have reached the summit of the five highest mountains in the contiguous 48 states (Mount Whitney in California, Mount Rainier in Washington and Colorado’s Elbert, Massive and Harvard).

We spent a few minutes on the summit admiring the views, fine weather and talking to two other hikers. Then we decided to commit to the traverse to Mount Columbia.

We dropped down the east ridge, picking our way across rocks and finding an intermittent trail along the way.

To avoid class 3-4 scrambling on the ridge crest (it was nearly painful for me to pass up the scrambling opportunity) we dropped down to around 12,800 feet on grassy slopes.

I had considered letting Helen and Torrey take this route and sticking to the ridge crest, but the descriptions I’d found online of this traverse made it sound less than obvious. So I determined to stick with my pack and lead us to Columbia on the class 2 terrain that Torrey could negotiate.

Up above us, the “rabbits” gendarmes beckoned. Maybe I’ll have to make the journey back here one of these days.

We only found a couple cairns along the traverse, but I picked up some goat fur on my socks as we passed a great bivy spot with level grassy ground backed by a 20 foot cliff to follow a goat path. As we closed the distance between us and Mount Columbia we even had pockets of persistent winter snow to cross.

Soon we started to regain elevation and reached a small saddle between the ridge traverse and Mount Columbia. We took a break for food and admired the view back to Harvard.

The clouds were building up and I was anxious to top out on Columbia and begin our descent back to treeline. The last 600 feet of our nearly 6,000 foot gain of the day came slowly, but the summit was eventually reached, about 2 hours after leaving Mount Harvard.

We didn’t spend long on Columbia’s summit, even through having a 14er summit to ourselves is a rare and precious gift. With dark clouds overhead we hurried along the exposed south ridge looking for the descent path.

Helen had twisted her ankle along the traverse so we did what we could to keep her moving on. I gave her my trekking poles to help with the descent as well as a few ibuprofens. She tightened her boot for more support and gamely continued on.

I’m not sure we took the best route down from Columbia, but from talking to other hikers all the options weren’t very pleasant.

Loose rocks, scree and talus and plenty of dirt separated us and tree line some 2,000 feet lower. Torrey rapidly clued into the dangers of loose rocks and would either keep her distance from Helen and I, or decided to scree surf on my heels. She’d wait for me to slide down, starting mini-rock avalanches and let herself slip down in my wake. When I’d stop, she’d collide into my calves and wait for me to continue again.

When we finally reached stable ground I took the opportunity to empty my shoes of all the unwelcome pebbles that had accumulated.

We followed some unofficial paths back to the main trail and then pushed through willows to the creek. Helen numbed her ankle in the cold water while Torrey cooled off her whole body in the stream.

Recovered, we all headed back to the trailhead for a relaxing afternoon. We’d hoped to climb some additional peaks this long weekend, but Helen’s ankle wasn’t healing quickly. The afternoon rest extended into Monday, leaving plenty of peaks for future adventures.

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