Hiking Hard

I spent this weekend pushing my limits and ended up summitting 4 peaks in the process. That meant hiking about 22 miles and gaining over 11,000 feet of elevation in under 48 hours. Not an easy task, but well worth it. We left the Vail Valley right at 5 p.m. on Friday and headed towards the Blank Gulch trailhead for Mt. Shavano and Mt. Tabegauche. We arrived at about 9:30, set up camp and went to sleep. Unfortunately, I couldn't fall asleep and ended up passing out around midnight. Not good when you plan to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to start hiking. Regardless, I was ready to get up and we hit the trail at 4:35 a.m. wearing headlamps. We slogged through some muddy trails and eventually got to a break in the trees around the time the sun was rising.




We kept hiking at a decent pace and eventually reached the saddle below the steep final ascent to the summit of Shavano. We were passed by one guy and ended up summitting right after him for the first peak of the weekend.




Here is my "Old Miner" pose on the top of Shavano.



Our friend and hiking partner Mel summitted shortly after us. Gabe and I took off right after this to summit Mt. Tabegauche before a storm built up.




The traverse to Tabegauche was pretty easy and we summitted right after the same guy who beat us to the first peak. It's nice to be on the peak by yourself without a big crowd.




While on the summit of Tab, we ate our lunches. I had made some chicken pasta for the weekend and I nearly swallowed the whole bag I was so hungry.



We met some cool people on the summit and exchanged some great stories. The clouds were really starting to darken and build to the east, so decided it was time to head out. We quickly got back to the top of Shav and headed down to the saddle below the summit.




We booked it down to treeline. The hike back through the woods was nice because we couldn't really see our surroundings on the way up. We did visit this tree that we had noticed for an intriguing photo op.




Back at the car we enjoyed a few beers and visited with some hikers we had met on the summit. Headed back to Buena Vista for some post-hike-pizza. Mel dropped Gabe and I off at my car in Leadville and the two of us started to the Missouri Gulch trailhead to camp for the next days hike. We stopped at a lake on the way for a much needed hippy dip. I think the water was about 55-60 degrees, which wasn't really that bad. We had to move quickly because we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes.





We found a campsite just before the trailhead for Belford and Oxford and passed out before the sun went down around 8:30 or 9:00. It was nice to get some good sleep before we woke up at 2:45 a.m. to get ready for another big day of hiking.


We were on the trailhead by 4:00 a.m. and quickly remembered what gaining elevation was like. The trail started out by immediately gaining about 2000 feet in around 1 mile. Our goal was to make it to treeline to see the sunrise. We made it in just under an hour and welcomed the gentle slope of the gulch we reached. The sun was slowly coming up as we hiked up the valley and we caught this view over the ridge.





The sun slowly provided enough light for us to take our headlamps off. Gabe caught this shot as I came around the first false summit.





A group of ptarmigans was on the ridge as we got close to the real summit. Their camoflauge is so great I almost didn't see them.





After 3 hours of climbing switchback after switchback, we made the summit at 7:00 a.m.




There was one guy about 40 minutes behind us, but we had the summit to ourselves. The wind was blowing relentlessly so we hunkered down in a wind shelter to regain some energy. We scrambled back to the summit for some photos, and found a marmot with his head in Gabe's pack when we got back to the wind shelter. He seemed pretty interested in Gabe's chocolates.





Right after another hiker, Bruce, reached the summit, we took off to gain the summit of Oxford. This traverse was longer and steeper than the traverse from Shavano to Tabegauche the day before.




We were still debating an attempt to summit another close peak, Missouri, but decided against it. Some dark clouds were starting to gather and we didn't have enough energy to hike fast if it got nasty. So we headed down an easier route towards the trailhead. The Elkhead Pass route that we descended was longer, but not nearly as steep. And it provided some beautiful views through the flowers.

While hiking down the gulch, we made guesses as to what time we would be back at the trailhead. For the second day in a row, our estimates were accurate only about 7 minutes off. Not too shabby! After breaking down camp (a.k.a. throwing everything in the back of the car) we stopped in the lake for another quick dip. So refreshing! All we had left was a trip to Rosie's Brewpub for hamburgers and homebrew. This was by far one of the most intense weekends I have had in a long time. Luckily I only got one small blister on my right toe. Now it's time to plan some hiking for the rest of the summer. It's nice to know that I won't have another weekend as long as this one.