Mt. Columbia, Colorado: My 1st 14er!

This is Mt. Columbia, as seen from its less impressive western face--the face you'll probably climb if ever you climb it.  Mt. Columbia shall forever be MY mountain.  It's the very first mountain I've ever climbed that exceeds 14,000 feet.  And--because coming down off that mountain took me so long--it might just be the last 14er I ever do.  So...it's my mountain, the one I chose, the one I climbed, the one I'll always talk about and remember.

I'm staying in Buena Vista, Colorado, and there are five "14ers" near here, all of them named rather pretentiously after prestigious universities: Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and Columbia.  Together they're known as the Collegiate Peaks, and they're located in the incredibly beautiful Collegiate Peaks Wilderness in the San Isabel National Forest.  I had a day to devote to climbing a mountain, so I picked Columbia in much the same way I pick many things: Because, although it was good, no one else was choosing it.  If Mt. Columbia were, say, 20 miles from Pittsburgh, it would be swarming with climbers.  But because it exists in a place of so many choices, it tends to get overlooked.  Mt. Columbia is massive and beautiful, but it's the least popular of the five.  This is in part due to an infamous steep field of "scree" that causes climbers to lose the trail and to have a hard uphill slog in crumbling dirt and gravel, which makes footing treacherous.  See in this second photo how the trail hugs the mountainside.

Very close to Buena Vista is a narrow dirt lane leading into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness.  I followed the track at 6:00am and thought, at that hour, I'd be the only person at the trailhead.  But when I got there, I found probably 30 cars already parked there.  Much to my relief, if not to my surprise, most of the people were not headed to Mt. Columbia.  They were headed for Columbia's taller and handsomer brother, Mt. Harvard.  (For me to shun you, all you gotta be is popular.)  But some of the folks there weren't headed for any mountains; they were just camping in the wilderness area, or fishing, or hiking.  I did see a mother moose and her two calves on the long road out to the trailhead.

Mountain wisdom says to go early, get up the mountain, take your selfies, and get down ASAP.  The mountains make their own weather which is unanswerable to the weather app on your iPhone.  You might see that there's only 30% chance of rain in Buena Vista, but that's 7,000 feet below the summit that you're aiming for.  Those summits typically start to collect clouds by about noon and there can be thunderstorms, rain, snow, or hail.  The later you stay up there, the more likely you are to experience any of these.  It glowered and threatened up on Mt. Columbia, starting right on schedule at noon, but the weather held the whole time I was on the mountain...which is to say 11 freaking hours!

Yes, it took me 11 hours to complete this 12-mile trek.  My guidebook listed an average hike time of 8.5 to 10 hours.  I started this trek at the parking area at 6:15am, and I didn't come trudging wretchedly back until 5:30pm--utterly spent and barely able to lift my feet.  The outward and upward leg of the journey was not too hard, the views kept getting better and better, and I was spurred on by the excitement of reaching the summit.  The return was less fun and less easy.  

Here’s a view of Mt. Columbia as seen from the Collegiate Peaks Overlook, which is in the hills east of Buena Vista.  By the time you get above the mountain’s treeline, the trail is rocky and well cared-for, as seen in the second photo.  In places, it's truly a stone staircase, where enormous natural blocks of stone have been arranged into steps, and stone guardrails have been erected, as well as stone supporting walls.  I have no idea how you do that kind of stonework on a steep mountainside, so I was pretty impressed.  

The rocky trail makes long, long switchbacks slowly up the lonely mountainside.  The climb is gradual and scenic.  But then it comes to a certain point where the switchbacks end and all you see underfoot is loose, dusty gravel and dirt.  This is the screefield.  It's long, and steep, and hazardous.  You can't really build a trail on it because it won't hold anything.  Your foot will slide on the loose dirt and gravel, but don't trust the stones here either.  Many stones look stable, but they're planted in loose earth, so your foot will cause them to slide away beneath its weight.  For many years, there was no established path up the infamous screefield on Mt. Columbia.  But within the past two years or so, someone has gone to the considerable effort of establishing a slippery route (if not a trail) through the scree.  And they've marked it with cairns.  It was sometimes hard to locate the cairns on the upward climb, but they were very visible when seen from above, on the downhill return.  

Click on this photo to enlarge it.  This little fellow here is a marmot, and she has set up her mendicant operations at the very pinnacle of Mt. Columbia.  When you top a 14er, you pull out your snacks and drinks to celebrate.  This little friend wants nothing more than to help you celebrate.  But look at the big world beyond, so vast, so lovely.  I wonder if the marmot has eyes for such a view.

Just past the screefield you're rewarded with a saddleback ridge-walk that follows the crest all the way to its peak.  It's rocky but relatively easygoing, and the views are truly amazing.  I wish I knew which of the other peaks were visible in these photos, but I don't.  I do believe the one in the background of this picture is Harvard, but I'm not sure.

Here again is the mirrorlike Bear Lake, which sits isolated and treeless high among the mountains.  It seems that there were only seven of us who peaked Mt. Columbia that day.  We all ended up meeting sooner or later either on the summit or else somewhere else on the mountain.  Four were guys in their 20s, and they peaked at Mt. Harvard first and then followed "the traverse," which is a high, treacherous ridgeline connecting Harvard to Columbia.  In fact, I got the impression that most people never bother with Columbia's peak except as a "2-fer" with Harvard's peak.  Can you imagine being noteworthy in your own right but being constantly overshadowed by others--others that are better or only slightly better than you?  That's why I chose Columbia.  I longed for its loneliness.  I related to it.  Ah, but that's just projection anyway.  The mountain is not blighted by the curse of ego.  The mountain and the marmot are free of envy, free of comparison, free of desire--except to eat, in the marmot's case.  The mountain doesn't care.

There's the summit in the center of the photo, and this is the long saddleback walk to it.  If you look closely you can see in this photo a young couple with whom I shared the trail for much of the distance.  I would pass them, then they would pass me, and the process would repeat.  It was his 38th 14er and her 1st.  She was such a sweet girl.  She asked if we could take a photo together at the top, since it was the first 14er for both of us.  But then we forgot to swap contact info in order to share the pic, and I lost them on the way back down the mountain.  Their 25-year old knees were able to take the descent A LOT faster than me.  I saw her looking back at me worriedly from time to time to see if I was okay.  I mean truly, I don't think I could have made the descent without two trekking poles, which I used like crutches at times to lower myself down onto the next stone.  I think of myself as a relatively vigorous, healthy guy--all things considered.  I'm 52 but thin and physically active.  And yet, the mountains will teach you humility.

There's snow up there year-round.  

I read in a 14er guidebook that there is delicate plant life near the mountaintops.  It was beautiful to see these unfamiliar and yet strangely lush plants growing in the rocks all along the switchback trails just above the treeline.  So many kinds of wildflowers I'd never seen before.  The guidebook also said that many of these plants can live a decade or more.  I kept thinking I smelled marijuana up there on the rocky heights, but it turns out that one of the humbler-looking plants smells remarkably like cannabis when the hot sun is on it.  

And so, will I do another 14er?  Hmm.  My kids are coming out here to join me in the near future, and I'd hate to deprive them of the opportunity of doing an easier 14er--for there are much easier ones to do!  But will 14er peakbagging become my new hobby?  No.  Like so many things, I came to it too late in life.  When I was younger and more physically capable of descending mountains, I hated Colorado for being so popular, and so I never allowed myself to embrace its wonders.  Ironic, isn't it?