Ice Climbing at Ouray, Colorado

Hanging out in Silverton, Colorado for the Christmas and New Years break, we hit Ouray Ice Park in Ouray, Colorado for some ice climbing. Whilst Mark has done it many times before, it was my first time on the ice, allowing me to test out my new ice climbing gear! I'm in the blue jacket, and Mark was in the red jacket. It was awesome fun, and I surprised myself that I made it up so far!
29th Dec, 2008

Wahoo!!

We've reached 40 US High Points!!! 10 to go....the big ones in the West...

Colorado's High Point - "Mount Elbert"

Colorado's high point is Mount Elbert at 14,433 feet. It is the third highest of the 50 state highpoints in the US, after Alaska's Mt McKinley and California's Mt Whitney. For you Aussies as point of reference, Mt Elbert is twice as high as Mt Kosciuszko (Australia's highest mountain point). This was to be our last high point on this road trip and the highest mountain either of us had climbed so far!

Mount Elbert is located in the San Isabel National Forest between Leadville, CO and Aspen, CO. We stayed in the town of Leadville, which is the highest incorporated city in the US for one night to help acclimatize to the higher elevations before spending the next night at Elbert Creek campground near the Mt Elbert trailhead. Whilst crazy dusty, we got a cool campsite next to the creek (which was high and rushing from the melting snow higher in the mountains).

On Saturday 28th June, we woke up at 2.30am and go ready for our climb. The trailhead starts at 10,100 feet, and over 4.5 miles it climbs 4,550 feet. This was not only the highest elevation we would climb too, but it would so be the steepest in elevation that we would have to cover. We left our campsite at 3.30am and headed to the trailhead not far away. The trail comes to a junction after about 15 minutes. The sign there points that the "North Mount Elbert Trail" turns to the right and you will feel yourself heading down in elevation. This is the wrong trail as this takes you back to the road so we learnt. We had to backtrack back up to the junction and head slightly to the left and you will feel yourself hiking up. You are now on the right trail! We hiked in the dark with our headlamps, which later I learnt when I was coming back down, was great for not allowing you to see the steepness of the trail you were on! We stopped for breakfast (a protein bar!) at 5am and watched the sun rise through the trees which was beautiful. At 6am, we arrived at treeline and could see ahead of us a long stretch across the mountain and a steep mountain ahead of us. It was the start of a beautiful day with blue sky and light winds. After an hour of switchbacks and hiking across the dusty trail we arrived at the bottom of the steep mountain (our first false summit). We were going slow and were feeling the altitude and I had to keep practicing my deep breathing to keep going. Half way up the mountain, we could see the first of the other hikers in the distance. When we reached the top of that mountain, we were faced with another steep mountain in front of us. The steepness made it tough going, but the desire no to be past by the other hikers spurred us on. At the top, we would still see more ahead of us, so we sat down and took a rest, thinking we still had a lot more to go. It wasn't long before 4 hikers past us! Locals who do this all the time we keep saying (and later learned was true so we didn't feel so bad!).

When we got started again, we were surprised that we weren't as far from the summit as we thought! Man, we could have kept going and not let the others past us if we had known! We reached the top at about 8.45am! It was a beautiful sight with the many snow capped mountains around us which spread across the horizon. It was a great feeling to have achieved this highpoint! The summit was marked with a post and a register. We happily snapped away with the camera and stopped for a chat with a few of the others who were locals and had done many of the other 14ers (there are 54 14,000 feet mountains in Colorado of which Mt Elbert is the highest). At 9am we headed back down the mountain and we arrived back at the trailhead just after 12 noon very tired. We spent the rest of the day napping and relaxing at our campsite. Our highpointing adventure for this trip was over. We would spend the next two days in Boulder and Denver relaxing before flying home.

Nebraska's High Point - "Panorama Point"

Nebraska's high point is Panoroma Point at 5,424 feet. It is located in Nebraska right near the state lines of Colorado and Wyoming near the town of Pine Bluffs. We followed the back roads onto unpaved roads until we reached a private gate with a sign and we paid $3 per person to enter and visit the high point. The high point is in the middle of no where on what seemed like pretty flat land. It is marked with a stone monument and a sign in register box. A few minutes there are and we were off (as the skies looked scary, and on the way back we actually saw some very small dust tornados forming in the distance!)

South Dakota's High Point - "Harney Peak"

South Dakota's high point is Harney Peak at 7,242 feet. It is located in west South Dakota in Custer State Park, which is known for its wildlife (Bison, Pronghorns and Bighorn Sheep which graze through the State Park). It is also in the Black Hills area which includes the Mount Rushmore national monument.

The trailhead is located in Custer State Park's Sylvan Lake day use area and the trail about a 6 miles round trip. We didn't get on the trail until 11am on Monay 23rd June. It was a great day, warm but not too hot and the area was very busy with tourists. There are two trails to teh summit. #9 which is supposed to be shorter, least steep and the most popular trail, and #4 which is a little longer, offers more variety in terrain and takes you past the Cathedral Spires rock formations. We decided to take trail #9, but someone got lost and ended on the #4 trail on the way up. The trail took us through the trees and afforded us great views of fantastic rock formations which are all around the Park including the Cathedral Spires rock formation. We reached the Harney Park high point at 1pm, which is marked with a lookout tower building. There were lots of tourists there as we sat and admired the view which was truly very inspiring with its interesting rock formations set amongst the trees. We decided to take the trail #9 down and two hours and we were back at the parking lot.

We camped at the Custer State Park Sylvan Lake campground for two nights. The first night we were greeted with the brightest (and scariest) lightning storm I'd ever seen. The lightning would brighten the entire sky which can look quite alarming when you're lying in a very vulnerable tent! Each night it would rain, but the next morning we would have the most beautiful warm blue sky day! Such is the weather in summer! Sylvan Lake was recently made famous as the site where the movie National Treasure 2 was filmed. Its a very beautiful area with the large rock formations rising from the lake waters. It is also very close to the Mount Rushmore national monument (30 minutes), Badlands (2 hrs) and of course, the Custer State Park where you have to take the wildlife look and spot the Bisons grazing!

North Dakota's High Point - "White Butte"

North Dakota's High Point is White Butte at 3,506 feet. Located on private property, the high point is a butte near the town of Bowman, ND.

We made the drive from Wheeler Peak in New Mexico, stopping overnight in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The drive from New Mexico was quite unsettling as we drove across the flat plains in New Mexico and Colorado, watching dark thunder clouds in the sky and what seemed like small tornados forming in the distance (we were from the East Coast and had heard too many stories of Tornados in this type of area!).

The drive to the North Dakota highpoint seemed to take forever as we drove along quiet roads in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at the property and was supposed to ask for permission to visit the highpoint from the property owners in the green house but the area, and the house was abandoned and empty except for garbage and left over items. So we headed down the overgrown driveway to the small parking area near the trailhead for the summit of White Butte. It didn't seem like anyone had been in the area for days, or even months.

As it was already 5pm and the skies looked ominous like thunderstroms were brewing in the distance, we were in a hurry. We got out of the car, keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes (a big problem in the area). The hike to the summit and back was 2 miles, climbing 406 feet in elevation at the Butte. Slapping on some insect repellent, sunscreen and putting on gaiters, we headed to the summit continuously making noise to keep away the snakes. Within half an hour, we arrived at the summit which was marked with a register. The register told us someone had visited yesterday! A few photos and we were off keen to get out of the area (away from snakes, bugs and thunderstorms!). We were back at the car 15 minutes late. As we drove away, and towards South Dakota the sky lit up with lightning! Talk about timing!

New Mexico's High Point - "Wheeler Peak"

New Mexico's High Point is Wheeler Peak at 13,161 feet. Located in the Taos Ski Valley, there are two trails to its summit; the Williams Lake route which is the shorter 3.5 mile one-way trail but rises 2,960 feet in elevation (ie: you go straight up the mountain and its steep!!), or the longer 7 mile one-way trail which rises 4,560 feet (ie: longer but gradual steepness).

We stayed two nights at Columbine Inn in the Taos Ski Valley to acclimatize to the higher altitude (lessons learnt from climbing Humphreys!). We spent a day in Taos, eating, window shopping and relaxing at the local pool and spa. There was a great restaurant called Orlando's New Mexican Cafe just north of the main part of Taos which had great mexican food and fantastic atmosphere including outdoor seating. The lines at the door were a sign of its popularity! Another great place is the Taos Pizza Out Back restaurant not far from Orlando's on the same main road. Authentic, home made pizzas in another fantastic atmosphere made eating out in Taos one of our favourite places.

On Saturday 21st June, we made our way to the trailhead parking lot for the Wheeler Peak summit. Rocking up at 5am, we were the second car in the parking lot with two guys in a van already getting ready for the hike. We were on the trail at 5.20am starting at 10,200 feet in elevation, hiking towards Williams Lake first which was 2 miles from the parking lot. The hike makes its way through the trees, and we had to hike across many piles of snow left over from the winter now yet melted under the trees. We arrived at Williams Lake, which was at 11,040 feet at 7am. Not too bad time wise, and we were greated with a beautiful view of the lake with the sunrise on the mountains over the lake. Check out the picture below!

This was when the hard work started as we would now have to hike up nearly 2,000 feet within a mile and a half of trail. Taking a trail to the right of the lake that was a valley between two mountains, we started through the trees and it wasn't long we were above the trees and on the rocky mountainside still with fields of snow on it. At times we would hike across the snow, and other times scramble across the rocks. It was steep, often 60 degrees steep! It was good to have our trekking poles! Forward the top, the wind was starting to blow quite ferociously! We came to the ridge between Wheeler Peak and Mount Walter just around 9am. Leaving our packs behind there, we hiked to the summit arriving at 9.15am. There was a canon -like marker there where we took a few pictures. After a few snacks, we hiked to the summit of Mount Walter (also over 13,000 feet) before heading down.

On our way down, we saw a group of Bighorn sheep crossing the mountain side below us which was cool. There were also many marmots making their homes in the mountain side, running across the snow fields and jumping into their holes. The trip down the same route we came up was steep, but the snow fields were so inviting we took the opportunity to slide down on our bottoms which made the trip down so much quicker, and so much more fun! See the pictures below of our snow sliding and the steepness of the mountain! We saved a lot of time arriving back at the trailhead at 12 noon. Mark and I both agreed that Wheeler Peak was by far the most interesting and rewarding high point so far.

Arizona's High Point - ""Humphreys Peak"

Arizona's high point is Humphreys Peak at 12,633 feet. This was going to be our first high point over 10,000 feet, and the impact of altitude would be interesting though we had made the point of trying to increase our altitude with each high point we had done so far on this trip to prepare for it.

From Guadalupe Peak in Texas, we drove all day and night passing El Paso near the Mexico border in Texas back up through New Mexico and staying the night in Gallup before arriving in Flagstaff, Arizona at 6pm. Flagstaff is a pretty cool town - plenty of hotels and restaurants and with a college in the town its quite busy compared to other towns we had stayed in. The town is also the gateway to the Grand Canyon South Rim which is about 80 miles north of the town.

At 6am on Thursday 19th June, we left the hotel and made our way to the Arizona Snowbowl (the main ski area in Arizona) about 7 miles from town. Winding our way up the mountain, we arrived at the large parking lot at the trailhead for Humphreys Peak. We were on the trail at 6am - signing in as the first people on the trail for the day.

The hike starts in the trees (which was already surprising, we thought we would be hiking through desert like conditions, not in trees and lusher conditions) on a well marked trail which was easy enough though at 9am we still weren't above the trees which concerned us about the pace we were on. A few people had already past us, including a young women with a small backpack who passed us and disappeared into the distance. Obviously locals who were well used to the altitude we told ourselves as we continued on. Out of the trees, we reached the ridge that runs betweeh Humphreys and its neighbouring peak Agassi around 10am. We were at 11,800 feet and could obviously feel the impact of the thinning air and high altitude with our lack of breathe and slow tiring pace. Sitting down for a break we snacked and appreciated the view around us which showed mountains still with snow scattered across its peaks and mountain sides.

We continued on, hiking in the very dusty and rocky trail which had become very steep and we clambering over rocks continuing up in elevation . The young woman who passed us on the way up passed us on her way back down. Snow was still evident off the side of the trail, many feet deep. My pace was extremely slow which disappointed me but I had to remind myself my body had never been so high before, and never at such altitudes. After three false summits, we finally made the summit just before 12 noon. It was a pretty sight, with a view of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in the hazy distance, and views across the red and yellow Arizona desert as far as we could see. The summit used to be marked with a stick which had obviously fallen over. Now it was just marked with some rocks. A few photos and we were keen to get down. The climb had taken us longer than we had anticipated. We didn't get back to the car until just after 3.3pm...nearly 9 hours after we started. We had read books telling us the peak could be reached in 5-6 hours so the altitude had really knocked our socks off today.

After the hike, we made our way to the Grand Canyon South Rim as Mark had never visited it before. It was packed with tourists, but it was good to see the Grand Canyon in summer (I had only visited it in winter previously). Only an hour away, the Canyon is definately worth the visit.




Grand Canyon South Rim: