La Plata Peak and Mt. Yale - Solo Summits

I spent this weekend doing my usual... camping and hiking 14ers. One big difference was that I did them all by myself this weekend. I left from work on Friday and headed towards the trailhead for La Plata Peak. I stopped at Rosie's Brewpub on the way in for some dinner. Gabe was there wasting some time before he met a friend in Buena Vista. After a filling meal and tasty beer, it was time to get on my way. I was running low on gas, but my plan was to hold off until I got to Buena Vista the next day. Gas there is under $4.00 and it is at least 20 cents more expensive in Leadville, and almost 60 cents more in Edwards. Once I got to the turnoff for my trailhead, I accidentally took a left instead of a right. Drove a mile or two on some rough road before I decided to turn around. I was pretty sure I had gone the wrong way from the start. Turned around and started down the right way. My only concern was that I may have burned the little bit of extra gas I needed to make it to Buena Vista. My campsite was about 2 miles from the little village of Winfield (no gas station), and nobody else was camping out there. Most people use the north trailhead for La Plata Peak. The solitude was nice, but also kinda freaky. I kept having these thoughts of a bear attack or some crazed mad-man out in the woods. After setting up my tent, I settled down to read a book and quickly went to sleep. You can barely see my yellow tent hidden behind the trees in the middle.





Woke the next morning and hit the trailhead at 5:35 a.m. before the sun was up. Made it to treeline around 6:00 a.m., just as the sun was coming out to play. This is a shot back towards the valley where I was camping.

The valley ahead was gorgeous. The sun was slowly rising to expose the beauty of the valley.

The sun had exploded and was blowing clouds over the ridge to my right.

I continued trekking through the boggy valley as the sun peaked over the ridge to illuminate the valley. I was keeping my eye out for the flowers and saw these red beauties.

Eventually I hiked out of the valley and made it to a big talus field. I had to keep a close eye out to find the cairns that marked my path. There were several different routes going up, so it was slow moving to decipher which was best. The top of this slope led to the summit ridge. The quick traverse brought me to the summit where I met some really nice people. With my one 10 minute break, it took me about 3 hours to reach the summit.

I soaked in the view and then began my journey back to the car. Now that the sun had really come out, I caught this shot of the valley I spent most of the morning hiking.

The rock formations in this area were spectacular. I wish I had time and energy to go do some bouldering on them.

If you didn't notice, the sky was pretty much clear in all the previous pictures. No reason to think some dark clouds would build and it would start raining. As I approached treeline, I looked back for one final view of the valley and noticed some towering clouds blowing in from the north. You usually don't have to worry about them unless they are dark or getting tall. It's hard to tell, but the clouds over the ridge were getting HUGE. That means potential for lightning. Good thing I got an early start and was almost down before these babies flew in.

I was back at the trailhead by 11:25 and ready to pack my stuff and get out before it started raining. But of course I had to enjoy a beer first.

Once packed, I knew I had to get out and conserve as much gas as possible. Most of the trail on the way to the highway was downhill, so I was basically able to idle all the way out. Got to Buena Vista with about 2 gallons to spare. Whew! Grabbed a burger and headed to my next camp site. It was only about 2 or 3 by the time I set up camp next to the highway. I wanted to get to sleep around 7 p.m. for an early start the next morning. I didn't plan on having so much time and I got pretty bored. Pretty soon, it started raining so my only real option was to read in my tent. Full belly + beer + reading in tent + light rain + long hike = SLEEPY. I tried to stay awake so I could fall asleep at 7, but my efforts to stay awake were pointless. I took about an hour nap. I was still really tired when I woke up, but knew it would totally mess up my sleep schedule if I kept sleeping. So I got up and started looking for something to do. Ate some pasta, read some more, rinsed off in the stream, and finally went back to bed around 8. Throughout the night I would wake up and hear the bass of some music playing. I thought it was a car that had pulled into our parking lot/camp site right before I passed out. They kept the music on pretty much all night. They barely stopped playing by the time I woke up at 4 a.m. So I got ready and hit the trailhead at 5:20 a.m. The hike was pretty uneventful. The view wasn't that great, especially compared to the day before. I did snap this shot as I was peeking through the treeline.

The trail above treeline was steep and loose, made of dirt and small rocks. It was pretty slow going. Too big of a step would leave you sliding back down the slope. I finally gained the saddle just below the summit ridge. It was a big boulder field. I was given the advice to climb on the east face because it provided some fun, but easy, bouldering (I would actually call it scrambling). I was the third person on the summit when I arrived at 8:30 a.m. The other guys on top also soloed the route and were great to talk to. Mt. Harvard is just to the right of my head in this shot, and Mt. Columbia is further right along the saddle. There is a coulior on the right that curves towards the top and kinda points to the top of Mt. Columbia.

Most all of the Sawatch range was visible from the summit. It is cool to be able to point out the peaks that I have already hiked, and see the ones that I will hike soon. I passed LOTS of people on my way down, which made me glad I started early for a quiet summit. After a delicious beer at my car, I headed to Leadville. Can you guess where I went in Leadville? Burger and a beer at Rosie's, maybe? man I love there homebrew and inside-out buffalo burgers. The stuff it with spinach and bleu cheese. AWESOME!