Summiting our First Fourteener
Becca, Megan, and I all hit the road early Sunday morning to get up to Mount Bierstadt, which is west of Denver, and generally rated as one of the “easier” fourteeners to hike in Colorado. We now understand that ratings such as Easy, Moderate, and Strenuous are all completely relative. Firstly, in relation to all other hiking that doesn’t bring you to the top of a very tall mountain, these trails are extremely difficult. In relation to a persons physical fitness, the difficulty rating of these mountain trails can slide quite a bit. And last but not least, the weather is certain to have a significant impact on the level of difficulty for any trail.
The weather today was very, very, bad. If there had been thunderstorms, with lightning we would have turned around and gone back down. But there was no lighting so we decided to press on, even when the clouds closed in on top of us only 3/4 of the way to the top of this 3.5 mile trek. It was rainy, wet, and muddy the entire day because of the unusually high amounts of precipitation we have gotten the past week. But then, we encountered a slow steady soaking downpoar at the most difficult part of the trail before the summit. Our trail quickly became a fast flowing creek, going against us. And then the rain started to freeze. By the time we actually reached the summit of the mountain our feet and hands were soaked and frozen. The temperature drop was really quite amazing. I wish I had a thermometer along to confirm what I suspect, that it was around 30-40 degrees at the top of that mountain.
The views on the way up and down were spectacular, but it was almost impossible to see anything other than the 100 foot circle of unforgiving granite boulders that were not obscured by the cloud we were in. It was still hiking, but with a lot of scrambling. I think the weather was a bad for this hike as it could get without being bad enough to make us turn back.
So, we accomplished what we had set out for, and summited our first fourteener. Despite mother nature’s best efforts to slow us down.