Using my dads GPS navigator in his new Honda Civic Hybrid, we made our way to the clubhouse. It was very windy outside and we layered up as we didn’t know what to expect. We went inside and got the information that the wind will blow until 10:30am which is about when we should be finishing up. (Go figure)

We walked over to the range, where you can’t even using your driver, and warmed up. We teed off in the dark on the first hole. On hole number 2 we finally had some sun and could see what we were doing, and by hole 3, we were actually starting to warm up and the wind was slightly calming down.

Every hole just seems to have some awesome view associated with it and the course was in great shape. There was plenty of wildlife to view on Arrowhead.

After golfing, we stopped at Waterton Canyon to do some fly-fishing. We hiked a couple of miles in and found a spot by a dam to fish. It worked out well as I hooked three fish and my dad got one within a minute of us arriving, but none the rest of the time. A storm was moving in so we made the march back to the car.

It was a great day and we were even back in time for dinner!

Pre-climb: When we were in Steamboat, Zac wanted to do a climb, in fact, he was eager to do Longs Peak first, but he knew better and mentioned we should start on something a little easier first. I chose Mt. Sniktau because it was close, relatively easy, and had great views.

Climb: Zac showed up promptly at 5am, which was our agreed upon departure time from Denver. We made the nighttime drive up Loveland Pass and parked at the summit. As we were getting ready in the dark I realized that I had left my hat back at the house, and so Zac, willingly gave me his.

Soon we were off around 7:30am, and initially you start climbing from the car at a good clip, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I ate almost a whole package of Goldfish crackers on the way up to the trailhead and now I was feeling queasy. (We hadn’t been hiking more than 10 minutes)

Zac took the break as an opportunity to use his iPod, which worked for about half a song before it froze up on him. Awesome. We continued the hike up to the top of the first hill, and there was a very nice wind shelter which worked very well. In the pictures you can see the American Flag that is just whipping in the wind. It was now 8:45am.

We took our time getting up to make the traverse over to the false summit, which in the wind was quite a task. We made it over there and stopped for a little bit to have a snack.

That didn’t last long as Zac said he was falling asleep so we left and descended from there and made our way to the real summit by 10:00am. It had a pretty darn good view for the effort if you ask me!

Zac said he “felt like Death” and laid down on the summit. We didn’t stay long as we wanted to make it back down so we could go to lunch.

On the way down Zac mentioned to me he thought his eyeball was freezing over. I thought about that comment for a second before it actually registered with me. He was serious. The wind was blowing so hard and it was cold enough that the water in his eye was freezing. He wasn’t wearing any sunglasses and so it had no protection from the elements. We turned up the descent even faster and made it all the way back down to the car within an hour.

Back at the trailhead we found a couple who were from out of state, and started hiking without water, without food, without jackets or gloves and didn’t know how far it was or where they were, and Zac and I looked at them with some concern.

On the way back down I-70, we stopped at Burger King for some great food and talked about how we already need to get something on the calendar for spring. Zac committed the big no-no on a hiking trip and fell asleep while I had to drive back to our home. The nerve!

Drive: 2.5h
Ascent: 2.5h
On Summit: 30min
Descent: 1hr
Drive: 2h

Claire is running everywhere: climbing, scaling, up and down, fast fast fast. She has the cutest little waddle/run but she is really efficient! She is amazing both Matt and I with her communication skills. Here is a list of words she says: Mom, Dada, cheese, dog, banana, shoes, keys, cookies, yes. Here is a list of words that she signs: more, milk, eat, drink, potty (toilet), airplane, car, ball, socks, help, please, baby, And Claire’s favorite things are animals so she either says/signs/or makes the sound of these animals: cat, cow, elephant, snake, bee, seal, spider, hamster, lion/tiger, lizard, horse, monkey, chicken, bird, bunny, fish, She also knows and can point to these body parts: head, hands, feet, toes, belly, belly button, hair, cheeks, chin, ears, eyes, mouth, tongue. Well, I know that I forgot lots of them, but at least that’s a start for the record.

Claire has just gotten 4 molars! And she is such a champ about it too. She’s already got a high pain tolerance, we know that.

At least 3-4 times a week we have been going to the park. She likes to swing and slide. She also likes taking all the wood chips out of the play box and making piles on the side walk. She is pretty independent, playing mostly by herself. When she does notice a kid her age/size she always signs baby and then the next thing she does is run up, get right in their face and touch their nose. Claire then looks at me and points to her own nose… it’s like- “hey- I found another nose!” Good job Claire. You are so smart. What Claire doesn’t care for is when the older kids try to lead her around and take her places, she pushes them away and doesn’t want to be carried of forced to do anything that’s not her idea!

We aren’t getting our hopes up, but Claire has shown interest in using the “big potty”. She has signed to us, run to the bathroom, and sit down to go twice now. This could be a good sign?!

She went for a 15 month visit at the doctor this week and she is now 31 1/2 inches long (about 70th percentile) and only 22 lb 3 oz (25-50th percentile). She did not even cry when they gave her a shot. And when the nurse asked us to describe her personality, and much as I could think of demanding, independent, strong-willed, loud, boisterous… I settled on “out-going”. That pretty much sums it up.

Enjoy the few pictures, we have been busy lately, but that’s a blessing because Matt has been working so much. God has given us so much to be thankful for and we truly are. Please keep my dad in your prayers as he is trying to recover from a stem-cell transplant after his lymphoma diagnosis. Fortunately we are set up to Skype (web cam converse) with him while he is in the hospital, so we are still in good contact with him.

Happy Halloween!
Love, Matt, Co and Claire

PS - I guess I should give a Sooner update. Today she ate about 10 pieces of chocolate (doh!) and so other than a sore tummy and some extra food to work off, she is doing her best to keep up with Claire. They actually play so well together.

We ended up going to Twin Lakes, just at the exit of Independence Pass off of Highway 24 south of Leadville. Instead of camping in the normal camping spots, we drove up past those, found a dirt road and took it for a while to find this SWEET campsite! It could have easily fit four more tents!

It was a great experience and very comfortable. I must say though, fishing with a Barbie Rod isn’t as bad as it might seem. I caught two fish within 20 minutes of each other.

Pre-climb: I have always been fascinated by Mt. of the Holy Cross ever since I was a kid. I would look at pictures taken in the 1800’s and be amazed that there existed such a mountain. So one would think if I were so impressed by a mountain why hadn’t I climbed it?

Well, the long and the short of it is, that I just didn’t ever get around to it! This mountain is routinely in the news for people getting lost, and turning up dead. Also, this mountain has a huge pass to climb up and over just to get started (1,000ft), and the only road accessing it is closed most of the year. I wanted a partner and I wanted summer trailhead access, and so the timing worked out for this weekend.

Climb: Mike and I finally had a free weekend together, and we left Saturday afternoon to head up to Holy Cross. We didn’t leave Westminster until nearly 4pm, and so we stopped in Vail for a quick bite to eat. (And to pick up more napkins for Mike’s mysterious bloody nose)

By the time we arrived at the trailhead (10,320ft) around 7pm, rainclouds temporarily built up and started to sprinkle on us. We geared up and headed up the pass with the goal of making it to the other side to camp for the evening.

The trail up Halfmoon Pass (11,640ft) doesn’t give a hiker much time to get warmed up. Added to this, (and further complicating the issue), we stopped at McDonald’s and both had Big Macs twenty minutes earlier. Needless to say, my heart wasn’t happy. I think next time I will eat something slightly healthier than McDonald’s mystery meat before hiking.

The sun was setting further behind the clouds and got to the point that when we were at the top of the pass, we couldn’t really see anything, so we had to put on our headlamps. The descent down into the valley was quick and straightforward with the switchbacks. A couple of times we turned off our headlamps just to see how dark it really was. It was scary dark. We couldn’t even see our hands.

We set up camp at around 10,700ft and went to sleep, the temperature was pleasantly warm. Mike had gotten a new tent, and so we tested it out and it worked really well and allowed great ventilation.

Mike’s watch alarm went off at 5am, but we didn’t get up until 5:45a and on the trail until 6a. At first, we thought we were heading the wrong way because we thought the mountains across the way to the west was where Holy Cross was and it looked really far. We wouldn’t discover until on our way out that one could actually see Holy Cross from the pass. (If done in the daytime, ha!) However, I did have my GPS with me and turned it on to establish that we were in fact on the correct trail.

The trail was well established up to the end of treeline at 11,600ft, which we made it to in about an hour from camp. At this point the rest of the route becomes boulder hopping and generally following a faint climbers trail from one cairn to the next.

We arrived at the ridge proper and still hadn’t seen anybody the entire trip. We were kinda surprised because there were plenty of cars at the trailhead.

Finally, we ran into a couple just where the snow started along the ridge. They had camped at 12,000ft and gotten an early start. They said there was only one group ahead of us, and they started climbing at midnight!! That’s six hours ahead of when we started!

We took to walking on the snow at their advice and made quick time because the angle of ascent finally leveled out for a while. Upon reaching the turn up the final summit ridge around where Angelica Couloir is, we took a break and enjoyed the view and the awesome weather that we were having.

Another group came around the Halo Route and was lost, thinking that was a hard route for being standard!

The final 600ft or so up to the summit went much quicker than we thought it would. And for Mike, he flew up it. Finally a group from behind us had caught up with us and I took a moment to chat with them as we arrived on the summit together just before 10am. My final Sawatch 14er! Note to self: I love finishing ranges…

The views from Holy Cross are awesome! One can see all the Elk Range 14ers from the summit. We took a moment to walk down to the top of the Cross Couloir and look down it. It was pretty steep, I’d say 45 degrees or slightly higher. (While reading this online doesn’t sound that steep, but once you’re in it, I’m sure you will think otherwise!)

The trip down was more of the same on any mountain. You see the giant ant trail of people that shouldn’t be on the mountain still coming up the mountain even as the day gets later and later. It just amazes me how little water people bring up for this hike. I used every last drop of my 2L from camp and we were climbing in the cool part of the day!

We arrived back down at camp at 1:30pm, napped and soaked our feet in the cold river, then packed up and left camp around 2:30pm. I was beat. The thought of climbing the 970ft out of the “hole” and back over the pass again made me groan more than once. However, the climbing went much faster than I thought it would, and once on the other side I could relax knowing it was downhill from there. The clouds were finally starting to roll in, but were south of us and were just starting to reach us as we got back to the car.

I can see how a person gets lost on this mountain. There are many drainage’s as your coming off the mountain and if you get into the wrong one, it’s a huge effort to get back to the correct area. I highly recommend this mountain for anybody looking for a more challenging hike, just be prepared and save your legs for climbing over the pass on your way out.

Drive: 3h
Ascent: 5.75h
Summit: 15 min
Descent: 5.25h
Drive: 2.75h
Total: 11.25h

However, this trip started off leaving town Saturday morning in a horrible downpour that started Friday morning and showed no signs of letting up until Sunday afternoon. Yet, we still convinced ourselves to go camping. Furthermore, since I was going with Fred and Mark, (and they have nice offroad vehicles), Bret let me borrow his Jeep so we could join along.

The Rubicon didn’t really have a “trunk” and so we had to pack, then unpack everything, then figure out a smarter way to pack to make everything fit. After passing the Engineering Exam, we drove to meet up with the other guys on the west side of town.

There aren’t many pictures from the first part of this trip because it was pretty steadily raining until we got up I-70 a ways. When we turned off the highway at Empire, (well, most of us turned off, I missed the exit and ventured on into Georgetown before I could turn around) and then took a right on Main Street to head up to Bill Moore Lake area.

This requires a decent 4×4 vehicle, and we stopped to let some air out of our tires before continuing. Luckily the rain had stopped coming down, and our hopes were high. When we finally bounced into camp, I realized I had forgotten our rain fly to our tent. And this was the one time we would actually need it because it was a guarantee that it was going to rain this weekend.

After Fred helped me whip together a solution (what *can’t* be solved by tarps and bungie cord?) we decided to setup the gazebo and table and furnaces…

Wait a minute.

Furnaces? What kind of camping is this? I used to knock it, but when it’s snowing outside, I have to admit, having a furnace is pretty nice. Along with having a gazebo and tables and chairs and hot cocoa. Thanks to Fred, we had pretty much everything we could want with us.

Claire was a champ and did great staying warm. Colleen had her bundled up with just about as much as we could and then let her sleep in her pack-and-play. Part-way through the night she crawled into her baby mummy bag that we got for her and Colleen put her next to her on the cot.

Wait a second.

Cots? Yes, we had bought a couple luxury items before the trip, and these worked out a lot better than air mattresses. With a cot you not only are up off the cold ground, but you can store stuff underneath so you don’t lose the space in your tent like you would with a mattress.

Fred, Mark and I played a few holes of golf at the campsite.

Ok, now this is getting out of hand.

Yes, Fred did bring some spare golf clubs with him that he didn’t care about, along with some whiffle balls, so we would have something to do in camp.

We made a trip up to the actual lake and it was freezing! The lake was partly frozen over, I didn’t even bother breaking out my new fly rod. Instead, we setup Claire’s Barbie Rod. However, I don’t think there were too many fish in this lake.

The next day we packed up and then drove the loop all the way around to Empire Hilton. Which is a semi-abandoned cabin that’s really creepy. The trail to get there was a little rougher (and slicker, due to all the rain) than Fred and Mark remembered. However, in the monster vehicle that we had, we were able to make it over all the obstacles and back down to the trailhead.

On our next trip, we just might have to pick up a few more luxury items before going, because they made this trip a lot more enjoyable.

On the way home we stopped at Beau Jo’s and it was so yummy.

Pre-climb: So I know I was saving Elbert for the end. Why? Because it is the tallest in the state and not *that* hard of a climb, so a lot of people could do it with me. And to my knowledge, nobody had finished the 14ers with Elbert. Most usually succumb to it’s height and the relative easiness of the climb and do it before the harder ones.

Then, one evening at a softball game, Jason mentioned Pastor Stan wanted to do it. Pastor hadn’t done a 14er before, and not really been above treeline but was in really great shape. If he was going to do it, I wanted to enjoy his company and do it too.

You know, I’ve realized over the 7 years I’ve been climbing these 14ers is that it’s less about the numbers and statistics and more about the friendships and experience.

Climb: I didn’t get to sleep until 11:30pm because I was excited to climb Elbert. However, the alarm going off at 3:30am didn’t excite me too much. Nevertheless, I made the drive over to Jason’s house to meet up with everybody at 4am. By 4:15am we were on our way.

Without traffic, Jason made great time up to Leadville. The whole way up we were excited to get this thing underway. We arrived at the trailhead at 6:30am and put on our sunscreen and enjoyed the morning. The wind was still, the sky was blue and not a cloud in sight.

At first the trail crosses a creek and is actually level for quite a ways. But then the relentlessness of the uphill battle that we would come to expect the rest of the day was upon us. And it was a workout.

Jason took off like he was in some Adventure Race while the rest of us paced ourselves. At treeline we took a break for a snack and looked at the next part of the route.

In the route description, Gerry Roach points out that there are many false summits. I think this is the most important piece of advice to know when climbing Elbert. There is nothing like thinking you can see how far you have to go, only to find out it’s nowhere close to the top. So while it looks like the summit is near, it’s not.

With that said, we thought we could be at the top of the first false summit in half an hour. In fact, according to our GPS, at the rate we were hiking it said we would be on the summit within an hour from treeline. While in truth, it ended up taking us over 2.5 hours. That’s how bad perception can be on a big mountain!

The rock up to the top of the first false summit was the loosest and steepest of the whole day. If you can make it up this part, and the weather is holding, you can start to know the notion that you are going to summit. However, the altitude was taking its toll on Jason and I.

We started to slow down as we crossed one false summit after another. Stan and David were still chomping at the bit to get there, and were delaying their success to step on the top simultaneously with the rest of us.

Once on top, we did enjoy the notion that we were on top of everybody in Colorado (and 48 other states in the United States) However, that extra 433ft over 14,000 really did do something to Jason and I. We were starting to feel a little headache coming on and just wanted to get down.

Jason, renewed, took off like a rocket again. For whatever reason I was done. I descended pretty slowly and took some time to enjoy the fact that it was a Wednesday, and while everybody down in Denver was busting around, making ends meet, I was up in the wilderness enjoying nature.

Pastor Stan and I had a great talk and there were many enjoyable memories to be had. However, on the way down we did notice that we came up a lot of steep inclines that we had totally forgotten about. Maybe we were sleepwalking early in the morning, but man! There was a lot of it!

At the bottom, back at the trailhead I stuck my feet in the cold mountain runoff and I’m hard pressed to think of too many better things than that.

Well Elbert, I can add you to my list.

Drive: 2.25h
Ascent: 4.75h
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 3.25h
Drive: 2.5h
Total: 8.5h