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.
We're back on the high point trial again and after flying into Salt Lake City, Utah, we started another road trip! After spending two days chilling out in Park City, we made our way out East to the High Unitas Wilderness. King's Peak, at 13, 528 feet, is Utah's highest point and was to be our 42nd high point and the the first of the many more 'difficult' ones on the West coast side. We arrived via the Henrys Fork approach which leads you from Interstate 80 to Mountainview and via smaller roads to Henry's Fork Campground which is the trailhead for what would be a 28.8mile, 3 day hike. It was Monday 19th July, 2010 and at 10.30am the carpark at the trialhead was surprisingly full. As we checked our backpacks and filled the platypus-paks with water, we watched a carloads of boy scouts piled out getting ready for their own hikes. We signed the visitors register and were on the trial at 11am. For the next 6 miles, we hiked though the trees which mostly followed a river. The elevation was pretty steady with the pain coming more from the heavy backpacks we were carrying and the very annoying mosquitoes and bugs which were a constant presence in droves. Why couldn't we pack lighter we continually asked ourselves! After a sketchy river crossing on two logs, we finally made it to the open fields on our way to Dollar Lake which was to be our camping location for the trip. It took us 5 and a half hours before we arrived (after initially hiking past the lake and missing it entirely and having to double back unfortunately). We scouted a good tent site settling on an opening higher up overlooking the lake as the area around the lake was quite marshy and wet. The mosquitoes there were horrible - at any one time there could be like 15 mosquitoes hovering over your skin. Only the 4 layers of insect repellent was saving us from being eaten alive. We only wondered whether having this much insect repellent and sunscreen on our skin was causing us chemical poisoning on the inside! We scoffed down Spaghetti sitting by the lake before scrambling into the tent (more so to avoid the mosquitoes) and headed to sleep at 9pm to ready ourselves for an early start in the morning for the climb to the peak. With a 5am start, we left our tents with lighter day packs heading up to Gunsight Pass. The clouds were very threatening and a few droplets of rain here and there often had us stopping to scramble to put on our rain gear only to find it wouldn't actually rain. When we got to the top of Gunsight Pass we had the choice of either going down into the valley to do the longer valley route up to the Peak which would add a few more miles to our day, or to take the much steeper climb up the immediate mountain scrambling over rock. Rather than loose altitude we decided to head up and spent the next hour or so hiking over rocks which took lots of concentration to ensure one didn't loose balance. Even though we had spent effort to climb over the ridge, we were only welcomed with seeing that we had to traverse across the mountain to the base of the next mountain which would be where we would accent up to King's peak. It was an hour of balancing over rocks which took a lot of concentration. On King's Peak, the mountain was made of rocks - big ones, small ones, boulders, scree and everything in-between. This was no hike or stroll up the mountain - it was a constant scramble up and over sharp rocks all the way to the top and took a lot of concentration which can be tiring on its own. After a few false summits, we made it to the top! While we were on top we were lucky enough to have some sun shine though and it gave us a great view of the various lakes in the area down below, and the mountain ranges all around. There wasn't much at the top though - no statue, monument or box to mark the high point, so after a few pictures and mouthfuls of trail mix and energy bar, we headed down and scramble back over the rocks. It was good timing as dark clouds were starting to roll in! On the way back, we decided to take the longer route through the valley rather than climb back over the ridge the way we came though. We figured it would be a flatter easier hike rather than scrambling over rock for hours. What was already a longer route became even longer when we decided to take a shortcut and we got lost. We spent another hour hiking across the valley floor trying to find our way back on the trail as the GPS we had kept telling us we were on the trail but we couldn't see it! All the while we could see Gunsight Pass at the top which was our target place. We finally made our way back through Gunsight Pass and back down towards Dollar lake but we were completely exhausted. It was 5pm by the time we arrived back at our camp. Rather than pack up and hike out (which would have taken another 4-5 hours), we decided to crash and camp out another night. Stuffing some lasagna in our tummies, we crashed early. The next morning as were were packing up the camp, we were rewarded by two young moose who made their way to the lake for a drink. It was a pretty cool sight to see them walk across the lake though it did make me think about the water we had used to drink (purified as best we could) from the lake as well! Just after 9am we made our way back on the trail. 4 hours later, after passing many more boy scouts making their way up on the trail, we arrived back at the car. We were happy to get away from the mosquito infested woods and made our way to find a hotel and a hot shower to wash away the 3 days of sunscreen and bug spray! 
