[Day 50] Mt. Elbert

I awoke to a fully dried tent and the warmth of the sun heating my shelter through the semitransparent medium of my tent walls. This was the first morning I’ve been warmed by my environment on trail, and it was an uncomfortable surprise. I could properly fold and stuff my tent this morning; the tent has been continually damp since Monarch Pass, some four days ago.

The view of the Sawatch Range from the east side of a Twin Lakes made the roundabout along the shoreline worth it. The view of Mt. Elbert was inspiring, and I wanted to go for a summit, but early clouds lingered over the Sawatch. Since I took the pretty-boy Collegiate East route, I figure I better give Mt. Elbert a go as a bit of punishment.

Walking around the lake, I came across a doomsday-looking concrete building — the Mt. Elbert Pumped-Storage Power Plant. The plant is fed by a higher elevation forebay adjacent to the lakes. Water is likely pumped or supplied by some other means, presumably during uncritical power consumption hours, to the forebay. The water is piped from the forebay through the turbines of power plant when demand for power is needed. It’s fascinating see the potential energy of water in a reservoir being used as an energy storage device — essentially a battery.

I made the seven miles to the South Mt. Elbert trailhead. A few miles before the trailhead, I conversed with a couple of locals. Much of the same was repeated from talks with other Coloradans — the insane lasting snow year and the unusual amount of miserable rain. However, they did provide some promise that these storms would clear soon enough. Considering my luck of yesterday’s weather (only a couple hours of snow flurries), I decided to give Mt. Elbert a go. It was by the way; I might as well.

The trail wasted no mileage. The ascent was close to 1,000 feet per mile, beginning near 10,000 feet and summiting around 14,400 feet. About a third of the trail was snow covered up the South Elbert route, but proved to be manageable, even during my midday climb.

Before the 2pm hour, I was enjoying a lush panoramic view of the heart of Colorado’s Rockies. The ranges of the north and south looked snowy — there is no escaping the Colorado snow this season, only short tactics of avoidance or the occasional segment of lower altitude trail.

The peak of Mt. Elbert provided a spectacular view of the Sawatch Range. It was a view that reminded me of the top of Mt. Whitney — the panoramic of deep gorges capped by pyramids alongside a river valley. The detour to the top of Colorado proved to be one of my favorite parts of trail thus far.

After taking in the Sawatch from the top of Mt. Elbert, I headed down the North Elbert route, which was a much more straight drop back to the CDT. South Elbert to North Elbert trails totaled about 8.8 miles of hiking and bypassed 3.6 miles of the CDT. The Collegiate East tread and Mt. Elbert’s rigorous climbing bellowed fresh oxygen into my fire — a fire that was dampened by the cold, wet, and mentally-taxing trailblazing of the the San Juan’s. The San Juan’s are undoubtedly a highlight, but the toll for early season travel was high. From the what I’ve heard, the next hikers through the San Juan’s are just reaching Lake City about now, some three weeks behind my entry at Wolf Creek Pass.

After merging back with the CDT, I stopped at the Mt. Massive trailhead to hydrate and eat a late day lunch. A day hiker arrived at the trailhead to cart some other hikers to their car parked far away. They asked about me, and I told them I was headed for Canada. They laughed. Twenty minutes later, the day hiker in his truck returned to the trailhead to particularly check on me and offer a ride. We talked briefly, and soon enough he realized I wasn’t joking.

I hiked on to make nearly a 30 mile day. It’s been refreshing to get more mileage under my legs on well trodden trail and without the serious impingements of snow covered trail.

I am camped tonight next to a roaring creek feeding into Turquoise Lake. Tomorrow, I’ll make my run for Tennessee Pass and Colorado Highway 24 for a hitch into Leadville.

Signing off,

Zeppelin / fReaK (ON a leash)