Bierstadt

#3 Mount Bierstadt (14,060 feet)

Route: West Slopes from Guanella Pass Trailhead
Vertical: 2770 feet
Distance: 6.0 miles
Companions: Stephanie Pahl
Date: 15 July 2001

This trip went much better than the hike up Grays and Torreys the weekend before. Sort of. We also had too much fun, concerning things I can't begin to describe here (don't bother asking. You probably would have had to have been there anyway. Suffice it to say, laughing too hard when out of breath at altitude can really hurt).

So... We got to the trailhead at Guanella Pass a bit before seven, and did a good pace, summitting a bit before ten. I did much, much better than the week before, and didn't have as much trouble with my knee this time (I was expecting it, so I used the poles the whole way). It was pretty stiff after being in the car for a while afterwards, but it walked itself out okay.

Anyway, we engaged the infamous willows (yes, Colorado has marshes even above eleven thousand feet where trees won't grow), but they built a walk over the worst parts a couple years ago, so it's no big deal these days (you don't have to wade hip-deep through muck anymore. This was enough to discourage many folks, including the person I hiked with today -- she turned around at the willows during an attempt a couple years back).

The weather was weird. I'm told that Bierstadt is often windy, so that didn't surprise me too much, but there were clouds even at seven (unusual for this time of year), and a (not-too-threatening but annoying) cloud stayed over the top of the peak all morning. By the time we got to the top, we were cold with the wind blasting away and no sun (the exact opposite of what it was like on Grays and Torreys where I'd been wishing for wind because it was so hot that day), and it eventually cut our hike short.

See, we'd been hoping to also do Evans, which is across the "sawtooth" (kind of a rough scary bit, but not as bad as it looks -- or so I'm told -- everything after it is gentle slope). But the clouds worried us a little, and it was cold and windy up there. So, common sense getting the best of us, we headed back down.

Which turned out to be a good idea -- we got pelted with cold, driving rain on the way down (maybe even some small hail, it was hard to tell, but it sucked). No lightning, and I had enough gear that I wasn't worried about Hypothermia or anything (my companion forgot her shell pants, so was a lot less comfortable), but pretty nasty anyway. The wind died down as we descended (whereupon we encountered the mud that used to be a trail), and it pretty much stopped raining when we got back to the trailhead.

And then stayed nice for the rest of the day -- no sign of the monsoon. Backwards and annoying, it was, not your typical summer weather pattern here at all. I was especially pissed because I put on sunscreen before I left, and I absolutely didn't need it. I hate the smell and it takes a couple days to wash completely off.

Anyway, afterwards we went to Frisco where the Backcountry Brewery is and had a few beers (hey, we'd just climbed Bierstadt, it was only appropriate, and they make my favorite microbrew, the Peak One Porter) and eventually we wandered back down to Denver on an alternate return route (down CO-9 to US-285 if you were wondering, we went up I-70).