It's tradition to go to REI before any big hike to pick up unnecessary hiking supplies. Keeping with tradition Dave and I went to the local REI in Colorado Springs.
The reports we got from some friends that had been up recently noted between three and seven inches of snow so I went to the REI looking for some gaiters. Apparently the gaiters would help keep snow out of my shoes up to a few inches above your shoe/boot which didn't really matter since there was actually a foot of snow up there. I walked out of the store with the Black Diamond Storm head lamp which I needed since we hiked up in the dark. The light worked great it illuminated up to 100 feet in front of us so we didn't take a wrong step. It also has a red light setting, but there was too much moonlight for it to be helpful. I want to try out the red-light setting as an evasion instructor.
We started our hike from the Crags trail head near Divide, Colorado. It's about a hour away from the Academy. Dave and I argued most of the time about entering the way points into the GPS. I think we were both too exhausted to deal with the GPS at 12 am. Instead we just entered the way point for the summit, courtesy of 14ers.com, and the parking-lot coordinates. It worked out pretty well, but we winged a-lot of the hike so we ended up on some questionable terrain. Visibility was limited as we hiked from The Crags to the tree line, but the path winded through pine trees at a pretty steep grade. We stopped a few times for food breaks so that we weren't completely depleted of energy once we reached the top. After about an hour of hiking and breaking we emerged through the treeline to stare at an unending ski-slope. It was steep enough that we slid down on our butts in a fraction of the time it took to climb up. Butt sledding turned out to be a bad idea for Dave since it tore his pants. On the way up we stopped for a break to look at Woodland Park below which we seemed to be towering over. The pitch-black sky was illuminated with billions of bright stars which is not a typical site in the DC area. At the top of the "ski slope" our elevation was about 12000 feet which was a 2000 ft climb from the parking lot according to my GPS.
This is a photo of the "ski slope", it goes on forever. Dave took it from the tree line on the way down.
After the ski slope we hiked through frozen tundra to reach the road that leads to the peak. It was filled with boulders and shin deep snow. We noted that there were bear tracks in the snow next to our own when we came back down. We were hoping the bear wasn't around on the way down. Past the bear prints the footing was questionable, one misstep could leave you tumbling into a valley.
The road was relatively boring, but we were enthusiastic since the grade wasn't too bad, and there were no "boulder fields". After a mile or so on the road the grade became pretty steep, and it winded around
an infinite number of peaks. To cope I began intervals of sprawling out on the road face down, eating Pringles, and hiking 100 yards. As I abandoned the road to climb the slightly easier cog rail road I continued to wonder how David's family climbed this in their mamoth 15 passenger van.
The Road The Cog railroad, notice the precipice to it's right.
After only a few minutes of following the cog railroad we reached the top at 14115 ft. The Cog railroad takes up thousands of people every summer to the top. Many climbers on 14ers.com complain about it as a tourist trap, but if they climb at below zero temps like Dave and I they won't have to worry about tourists being at the top since everything is closed. I tried to cook an MRE at the top, but the heat source wouldn't work since it was so cold. On the way down Dave and I saw two hikers and a few at the Crags, but that was it for the entire hike. We took a total of 9 hrs to hike the 12.5 mile climb. Below are some photos Dave took at the top. The first is the sunrise from the top.
GPS info: My GPS is in storage, but I'll update with the way oints when I acess it.
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