Archive for the ‘Colorado's Highest Hundred’ Category

Colorado 2010: Mountain Blitz

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

My goal this year was to climb as many of the remaining 14ers (and Centennial 13ers) as possible in 9 days in Colorado: August 19-27. The first and last days were travel days, so they were out, and I allowed for one rest day. The trip ended up going very well, and Jupiter Mountain was the only mountain on my itinerary that I could not get to.

August 20th to 23rd I spent backpacking from Purgatory Trailhead to the 14ers above Chicago Basin. I had a nice campsite at 11,000 feet, and succeeded in climbing Sunlight Peak, Windom Peak, North Eolus and Mount Eolus.

goat

Worried my toes were going to fall off during my rest day in Silverton, I bought some new hiking shoes for the rest of my vacation. The next day, I broke them in on a 16 mile ridge-walk in the San Juans: hiking to the summits of “Sundgog”, Sunshine Peak, Redcloud Peak, Point 13,811 and Point 13,832. This day turned out to be the unexpected highlight of my trip.

views

At this point my time was almost up, so I camped in American Basin, on the 26th hiked to the summit of Handies Peak to watch the sunrise, then drove to Denver to get one night of rest before my morning flight home.

reflection

Trip totals:
10 mountains (7 14ers, 2 centennial 13ers and a lower 13er),
22,975 feet elevation gain,
66.9 miles.

This leaves 4 14ers to climb (Blanca, Ellingwood, Culebra, Snowmass), and I am even more excited about some of the Centennial 13ers I will climb in the future, some of which I got first glimpses of during this trip while in the Weminuche Wilderness: The Trinities, Arrow, Vestal, Jagged Mountain, et cetera. There are always more mountains to climb.

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Back to the 14ers…

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

In the second part of my 2009 trip West, I got back to climbing some of the 14ers on my “Hundred Highest of the Rockies” list. I finally got all my trip reports and photographs organized and online.

Wetterhorn Cliffs

After some rest following the Grand Teton, I took a day to drive exactly 600 miles south to camp below the trailhead for Mount Sneffels. I climbed Sneffels the next day. After another day of rest, I climbed Wetterhorn Peak, followed immediately by a 3-day backpack to Navajo Basin to climb El Diente by a relatively unknown route (the North Buttress), traverse to Mount Wilson, and finally climb Wilson Peak. I wanted to climb Gladstone Peak as well, but that didn’t work out on this trip. The beautiful weather I had for Sneffels and Wetterhorn was replaced by thunderstorms and waves of hail during the backpack, which kept things interesting.

On Wilson Peak

Now only 11 fourteeners to go!

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Mountain Nerd

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

Hi, my name is Brad, and I am addicted to mountains. I am not attempting to quit any time soon, even though this addiction may be growing unhealthy. It’s not like I get out very often, but the momentary relief from the rat race reality is worth the wait. Since the vast majority of my time is spent not in the mountains, but in front of a computer, I have in the meantime decided to document my exploits. A virtual reality escape to the mountains is not anywhere near the real thing–I always miss the thin air squeezing my lungs, the feel of granite beneath my fingertips, the snow crunching with each footstep–but alas, this will have to do for now.

To maintain my sanity and drive to explore, I have a short list of mountains that I would like to someday climb. Most of the mountains I have climbed or hiked so far have been in Colorado, so I have become partial to the idea of climbing the 100 highest mountains in that state. That will be an ongoing project for some time to come.

There are others on the list, but right now, Denali (AKA “Mount McKinley”) is my primary goal. I was just recently climbing in Alaska, receiving the initial training I will need for glacier travel and crevasse rescue, and Mount Rainier will be my next step in training for ‘The Great One’.

My old web site, dailyvillain.com, has fallen by the wayside to be replaced by bradsnider.com. I plan to use this blog to track my progress in preparation for Denali and any future climbs beyond that, so that hopefully I can provide others useful and entertaining information based on my experiences. While I’m at it, I need to put in a plug for summitpost.org, the perfect website for armchair mountaineers like myself. It is always good to know there are other mountain nerds and addicts out there.

I am not alone.

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