Mt. Princeton

My motivation to hike only partially waned this weekend. I began to lose motivation at the start of last week, and it continued with the nasty weather. The forecast called for a 50-60% chance of showers and thunderstorms for the weekend, including heavy showers. Every time I checked NOAA it seemed to get worse. I had tentative plans with some guys I met on 14ers.com to hike Harvard on Saturday and then to camp and hike Princeton on Sunday. We ended up canceling the hike up Harvard by Friday evening due to the threat of bad weather. So I went to dinner with Chris at a lovely (sarcasm) little restaurant called Los Amigos. We sat outside next to a bar cart that smelled like stale hagfish or something else that evokes vomiting sensations. The food was ok, but nothing comes close to REAL Tex-Mex. Slept late on Saturday (ahhhhhhh), went for a jog, then to Leadville for lunch at... wait for it... Rosie's Brewpub with Chris. We both wanted to get out of the area and he hadn't been to Leadville.

Came home and the forecast was slightly more favorable for Sunday, so we went for it. I arranged to meet with two other guys in Buena Vista and check out the trailhead. There is a road you can drive up from the main trailhead that takes off 3 miles each way from the hike. It is rated as a 4WD road and I only have a 2WD with high clearance, so we weren't sure how my car would handle it. My friend told me I should be fine, so we went for it in my Pathfinder. The steep cliff on the side of the road didn't bother me... because it was dark and I couldn't see how steep it really was. The road itself wasn't that bad as long as I took it slow and stayed out of the easily-avoidable ruts. Once we got safely to our destination we hit the trail at about 5:40 a.m. The sun was just coming up as we hiked up the fire access road. We got some good views of the sun rising over the south side of the Mosquito Range.

The sun was like a red balloon as it shot up from the mountains through the clouds.

As we approached the turn-off to get on the trail, the sun was casting an erie red glow on the trees and Unnamed Peak in front of us. Yes, it is actually named Unnamed Peak. One of the guys I was hiking with brought up an old sailors quote, "Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." At least we pretty much knew what to expect from the weather. And we weren't sailing. You can't see as much of the redness in this picture, but hopefully you get the idea.

We continued hiking on the relatively easy trail. As we gained the ridge to the saddle, the clouds really started to settle in. They covered a large area, but weren't very dark (not holdig rain) and didn't seem to be building up (creates lightning). The thin cloud cover made for a pretty cool view.

After some trail finding and steeper climbing, we gained the summit. Just in time for it to start sleeting on us. We snapped a few quick pictures, put on rain gear, and started back down.

The hike down was pretty uneventful as we exchanged stories and quoted Family Guy. Drove back to Buena Vista and stopped for gas. There was a stand at the corner of the gas station so I decided to see what they were selling. The guy asked me if I'd ever had a Palisade Peach and cut me a juicy slice of paradise. I bought 1/2 a peck of the delicious delights. Headed back towards Leadville with my new bearded hiking partner, Chris (not to be confused with my roommate Chris), and went through my usual routine. Espresso at Provin' Grounds and hamburger and homebrew at Rosie's. I'm going to have to change up the espresso routine somehow because they ALWAYS burn the crap out of it. I end up pouring a bunch of sugar in it which is just not right. The rest of the drive home was nice with puffy clouds veiling some of the mountains.