Working my way south to north, I have now climbed all but one of the 15 Sawatch range 14-ers – only Mount of the Holy Cross remains. These prominent peaks, situated between the Elk Mountains to the west and the Mosquito Range to the east, form the Continental Divide and the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Lording over the Upper Arkansas Valley, they are visible from Salida, Buena Vista, Leadville, and surrounding areas of Chaffee and Park counties. Mt. Elbert, king of the Sawatch, is the highest point in Colorado and the second-highest in the lower 48 (only Mt. Whitney is higher). Ascending 3000-5000 feet up from subalpine forests (9–10,000 ft) through the alpine tundra meadows (11–12,000 ft) and harsh lands of rock (>13,000 ft) to some of the highest points in the country is a magnificent and joyous activity. By late July, the monsoon has transformed dry valley forests into lush and damp mountain jungles smelling of decomposing plant materials as microbial communities, fertilized by continental dust but kept at bay for 8 months out of the year by frost, explode in activity. Alpine tundra plants and mosses glow green in the harsh mountain sun. The world from treeline up to the high rocky places where plants can no longer grow is particularly spectacular. After many years of exploring diverse mountain ranges, Colorado’s alpine landscapes in the late summer stand out as the finest. Vast land areas above treeline, combined with a reliable summer storm sequence, in which mornings are clear and calm and afternoons are stormy and ominous, evokes simultaneous joy and terror and creates a distinct vibe that far exceeds other pleasant landscapes of the world: beaches, tropical islands, coastal fjords, rolling hills, canyons, desert oases etc.
Summit routes often ascend 3000+ feet over the span of just a couple miles. When I am fresh, I cruise uphill, tackling ascents of 3000+ ft in ~1.5 hours. But if I am tired or sore, the trail feels much steeper and I slow down. The ascent is a moving meditation in which the combination of exercise and raw natural beauty produces a state of pure dynamism. The descents offer the benefit of gravity, but require steady focus to keep the footfalls light and avoid wear and tear on the knees. The experience can often be enhanced by summiting multiple 14-ers in a day. With the first as a warm-up, the second (or third) becomes more challenging and rewarding. Sometimes these mountains are close together and easily combined (e.g., Mts. Belford and Oxford and Missouri Mountain), but in other cases, they just share a trailhead (e.g., Mts. Elbert and Massive).
Hiking 14-ers does not allow one to thoroughly explore Colorado’s alpine terrain, but it does allow one to get a detailed sense of its sky terrain. Some 14-ers are hard to clearly see from below, but in clear weather the summits allow incredible views of nearby 14-ers and other mountain ranges. It’s often hard to see the 14-er I am climbing, and seeing it from a nearby 14-er always provides new perspectives on where I have already walked (e.g., excellent views of Mt. Yale from Mt. Columbia trail).
I’ve been seeing mountain goats recently. Over the weekend of my birthday, friends Dave and Amy came to town and we did a single overnight backpacking trip on a short loop off of Independence Pass. At Lost Man Lake, where we camped, a group of seven goats roamed very close to us and our tents, sometimes just 10 feet away or so. A large male (“Mufasa”) often stood solitary in watch while the others munched on vegetation. It turns out these goats, which are more like antelopes, originated from the Himalayas and made their way across the Bering Strait, though the mountain goats in Colorado were introduced from Montana in the late 1940s. I have only seen them in the most incredible of high-mountain landscapes (e.g., last summer in the San Juans). It's shocking that they can survive the winter at such high elevations.
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| Among the goats |
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| Lost Man Creek drainage |
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| Mufasa |
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| Lost Man Lake |
I’m not going to provide too many details about the 14-ers except in the captions. In short, many mountains were ascended. All are in chronological order over this summer.
Photo Table of Contents:
- Mt. Antero (14,271 ft): 7.3 miles / 4770 ft ascent / May 31
- Mt. Princeton (14,200 ft): 6.6 miles / 5020 ft ascent / June 5
- Mt. Yale (14,200 ft): 4.6 miles / 4000 ft ascent / June 21
- Mts. Harvard (14,424 ft) and Columbia (14,075 ft): 9 miles / 5550 ft ascent / July 12
- Mts. Belford (14,200 ft) and Oxford (14,158 ft) and Missouri Mountain (14,070 ft): 9.6 miles / 7060 ft ascent / August 2
- Mt. Huron (14,010 ft): 3.3 miles / 3300 ft ascent / August 3
- Mts. Elbert (14,440 ft) and Massive (14,430 ft): 9.3 miles / 8350 ft ascent / August 27
- La Plata Peak (14,340 ft): 4.6 miles / 4310 ft ascent / August 28
1. Mt. Antero (14,271 ft): 7.3 miles / 4770 ft ascent / May 31
