14,420 feet (7/12/96)
I went to bed at 10 PM on the night of 7/12 with my alarm set for 3 AM. At 11 PM the sound of loud thunder and heavy rain woke me. With thoughts of yet another peak bagging excursion cancelled due to weather, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
3:00 came all too soon. Outside the stars were visible but water could still be heard running off of the buildings and trees. I checked out the on line weather servers. The one at had not been updated for several days. "finger weather@unidata.ucar.edu" was saying the usual mealy mouthed "partly cloudy, chance of afternoon thunderstorms". I finished packing and drove off, pulling away from the curb at about 4:00.
I arrived in Buena Vista about 6:30. Anticipating a long haul I skipped taking breakfast in one of the restaurants there and made for the trailhead. Following Roach's directions I reached the North Cottonwood trailhead at about 7:15. The last 5 miles or so of this dirt road are a mess.
I started hiking at about 7:30.
My original plan for this trip was to do Columbia via Roach's West Slopes route (II, class 2, 10.0 miles, 4200 feet). There is a bit of navigation required for this that I was having a hard time figuring out based on the book ("leave the trail just below tree line and climb east onto Columbia's west slopes.") Flipping pages back and forth I noticed that the navigation for the Harvard South Slopes route (II, class 2, 12.6 miles, 4550 feet) was more straightforward. Also the Harvard route sounded a lot more enjoyable (Columbia: "climb the long, tedious slope"; Harvard: "climb north on the trail up into the beautiful basin"). So I impulsively decided to eat the extra 2.6 miles/350 feet and do Harvard instead.
For most of the way this is a pleasant, clear trail. The trail starts by meandering through the woods. Then breaking through the tree line it meanders through the alpine meadows for a while.
North of Bear Lake, the trail kind of peters out near the foot of peak 13588. From here, the Harvard end of the Harvard/Columbia ridge becomes visible for the first time, like a great wall on which the peak of Harvard itself seems only slightly higher than the rest. Though Roach doesn't give any real detail about the final approach to Harvard in the text, his map shows the trail ascending to the N/S ridge connecting peak 13588 and Harvard a short distance north of peak 13588, then traversing about 4/5 of the length of the ridge to Harvard. I followed the herd of other climbers on a trail which avoided most of this ridge, ascending on a diagonal course to the last little saddle. This was the unpleasant part of the day for me as my ankles continually threatened to twist and give way moving sideways across this ridge on mostly loose and slippery footing.
I reached the summit at 14:40 (7:10 elapsed time). The view to the south of Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Antero and Shavano/Tabeguache was impressive. I had expected to be able to see Buena Vista but it was out of sight behind some ridge. Way off in the distance to the north I could see some mountain side completely whited out with snow, in contrast to most of the visible peaks which had only traces.
The rounded slopes of the eastern approach to Columbia suggested a possible alternative to the "long, tedious slope" which from Harvard looked alarmingly steep and long. Roach does not mention this possibility but Borneman and Lampert's "A Climbing Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners" alludes in its usual sketchy fashion to an eastern approach up Frenchman creek. (I have found a Bob Broeking trip report posted to rec.backcountry in Sep 1994 describing this route).
Someone had spilled a bag of potato chips and the marmots were present in force. I tossed some chunks from a half-melted hershey bar on a rock in front of me and was rewarded with a close up view. These cat-sized rather bear-like mammals look attractive at a distance but up close their face with a hare lip and two big incisors kind of spoils it. He nipped at the rubber sole of my boot between bites of chocolate.
I left the summit at 15:05 and made it back to the trailhead at 20:30. Total elapsed time: 13:00. I probably could have shaved 1/2 hour or so off of this by not getting slightly lost on the way back.
Weather for the day was back and forth. Until about 14:00, there were several waves of heavy overcast, then it cleared up and stayed sunny for the rest of the day. Crowding was not bad, though there were other people around I had stretches of several hours between encounters.
On the return trip I encountered for the second time a party consisting of two men on horseback with a dog trotting along behind. These two guys were hard looking, fit men in their 30s. One was clean shaven, the other had a moustache. They had all shiny new-looking gear. They had rifles in shiny new-looking leather scabbards and wore shiny new-looking leather chaps. For a second time that day they glared at me sternly as they rode by. They didn't say a word to me or to each other in my presence.
In a word, these guys had "cop" written all over them, yet they had no visible badges or insignia. The open carrying of rifles said "cooperation of local law enforcement" to me, since an ordinary person trying this at this time of year could expect to get a ticket for hunting out of season. As I later found back at the trailhead, they did not sign the register. Driving out at the end of the day, I spotted their camp featuring a super cab pickup, horse trailer, about 6 horses and a distinctly government issue looking tent, a big white affair with the flue of a wood burning stove sticking out the top. Here, too, everything looked shiny and new. Judge for yourself: two buddies out for some recreation in the wilderness with $100,000 worth of horses and new equipment, or some kind of secret federal operation in progress. I sure changed my plans to establish a drug plantation and heavily armed religious cult in the Collegiate Peaks wilderness.
Larry Mulcahy http://www.nyx.net/~lmulcahy/ GEEK CODE (v3.1) GCS d s a C++$ UL++++$ P+++$ L++ E+ W+++$ N+ K w--- M-- V- PS+++ PE+ Y+ PGP+ t* 5++ X++ R tv b+++ DI++ D+++ G e+++ h+ r* y- The Failed Clinton Presidency: day 1273, 189 days to go