The thing about 14ers, well, the mountain in general, is that storms generally come rolling in after noon. Hence, you best be down the mountain, or at least back below the tree line, before the storms come in. This is what led us to leave our house at the crazy hour of 4:30 a.m.
Arrived at Mt. Bierstadt around 6:45 a.m. As you can see, the top is covered in clouds. Good thing we can't see how high it is or we may have turned back! Even hidden in the clouds, I was apprehensive. Judging by my face.
Our view as we hiked up. And up. And up. The clouds were lifting as we were hiking, so we never quite caught up to them.
Getting there! You can see we are about cloud-level here.
We found snow!
Finally at the top! 14,060 ft. high. A bit windy, a tad cloudy, and a huge lack of oxygen up here.
Can you spot Renee?
The clouds blew over and the views were awesome!
A 360 degree view from the top! Please excuse the shakiness... my legs were a bit wobbly!
Having a snack before heading back down.
Cairns marked the trail once it was no longer visible. If only they were all this easy to spot.
Looking back up - we were at the tip top of that! This is where the trail ended and the scrambling began. Scrambling is Colorado-speak for maneuvering over rocks and boulders, sometimes on all fours!
3 hours up, 2 hours back down, and we are finally back at our car! Yup, we were at the very top of that mountain! Hikers vs. Mt. Bierstadt - who won? Technically we are alive, but moving quite slowly. So the jury is still out on that one!
I can't believe you hiked that. Not sure if I would have been able to get up so early.
ReplyDeleteLove your poses in the first and last photo - so funny!
Bierstadt was my first 14er and I did not think it was easy either! Great post :)
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