Bierstadt with My Dad

Date: July 2nd, 2008
Elevation: 14,060′
Rank: 38th
Route: West Slopes, Grade I, Class 2, 6.0 miles, 2770ft vert.
GPS: N 39° 34.966′ W 105° 40.083′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Rick Esser

Pre-climb: My parents were staying up in Georgetown and so I managed to take one day off and go up and visit them and climb Bierstadt with my dad.

Climb: Colleen, Claire and I left Denver late (9:30pm) on Tuesday and made it up to Georgetown pretty quickly. The hotel stay wasn’t very pleasant due to Claire not cooperating with the scheduled sleeping time of 11pm to 5am that I had hoped. Colleen was great and took care of Claire.

After quickly driving up Guanella Pass this 14er again brought back memories of a long time ago. Back before the giant yellow brick road they now have constructed over the willows. That takes all the challenge out of this one. However, one lady did still find a way to fall in the water, so I guess it was needed. Also constructed was a parking lot and bathrooms. Neither of which were there last time I was there.

I love the slight downhill at the beginning of this one. It gets you used to the altitude without busting your lungs. Once across though it starts to ascend up the “cliffs”. However, the trail is now much gentler than it used to be. I believe it went more straight up last time I was there.

After no time at all we were at the top celebrating with a few other people. The wind was surprisingly calm and we were looking forward to still having much of the day left to do other activities.

Drive: 1.75h
Ascent: 3h
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 2h
Drive: 0.25h
Total: 5.5h