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| Cole and Me on the Ascent |
I made a last minute decision around 8pm on Friday that I
needed to get out on a mountain on Saturday.
I shot Cole a message and he was in for whatever. I knew I had lost a step in my climbing game
with my office job, so I decided to keep it pretty simple and head up Mount
Flora again. The ultimate goal was to
tack on either Eva or Breckenridge, but a single mountain was enough for me on
this day.
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| Mount Flora |
The TH is Berthound Pass, and you can either follow the CDT
or head up CO Mines Peak via the access road then follow the ridgeline to
Flora. I prefer the CDT route, because
all the man-made structures at the top of CO Mines are rather unpleasing to me
as that is what I am trying to get away from when I’m in the mountains.
The temp was a chilly 35°; we put on some layers and started
up the trail around 8:30a. The access
road was lightly covered in snow, but once moving onto the trail it was ankle
to shin deep. This was a good day to
have gaiters. This was my third time on
the mountain and each time a new element has been thrown in my face. The snow and blustery winds made a nice
challenge out of a normal easy hike. One
set of tracks were on the trail ahead of us, which appeared to be trail runners,
so I image that guy had some cold toes.
We met up with a guy on his way down just before reaching the saddle
between CO Mines and Flora. He said it
was a white-out up there and he was shooting for Eva, but settled with what he
though was Flora. I confirmed he was on
Flora based on the tall slender cairn that marks the summit. We came geared up for bad weather so we didn’t
think too much of what he said and pushed on.
This was one of those days where it was a complete white-out with 40mph
winds one minute and clear and sunny the next.
So, it was a great taste of October in Colorado.
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| Pano Looking to the East |
I could tell I was way out of my typical climbing
shape. The last time I was at any decent
elevation was on Mount Guyot which seems like an eon ago. That desk job at USGS isn’t helping my cause
at the moment either. Oh well, just
soldier on one foot in front of the other as usual. At least with the adverse weather I could
blame my sluggish nature on the high winds..haha.
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| Cole Marching Up to the Summit |
Another couple turned around near the false summit, and they
appeared to be wearing a bare foot type shoe.
I’m not sure what they were thinking, so good thing they headed back
down. My boots were covered in snow the entire
trek, and I had cold toes, so wearing a light shoe makes no sense in these
types of conditions. The weather didn’t
seem too bad, I’ve had worse. I never
forget my climb of Mount St. Helens with howling winds and sleeting rain…now
that sucked!
We were able to follow the large cairns to the summit, they
were half covered in snow in some places but easy to spot because of their
height. We attempted to use a wind
shelter that I had used previously near the summit but it was full of snow
already. A short hike from there we
found a large boulder to hide behind. I
pulled out my large puffy and down mittens and we cracked open our summit
beers. Maybe one of the coldest beers I’ve
ever had. That along with my PB&J
and I was a happy camper.
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| Grays and Torreys |
The weather was constantly changing while we were on the
summit. We stayed up there for quite a
while. It was freezing cold, but we
prepared for it. Just putting my back on
and adjusting straps froze my fingers into stiff fingersicles. The down mittens paid off and warmed up my
fingers pretty fast. We decided it was
time to head down and started off while we could still pick out the route being
there was no cloud cover for the time being.
On the way down I put my trekking poles away so I could work
on warming up my fingers. Cole got a
nice comedy show of me eating it a few times in the slick snow. I’m sure he did too, he just didn’t have
anyone to laugh at him..haha. We made
good time coming down and the temps seemed to rise quickly. I was shedding layers about every mile, by
the last mile we had no hats or gloves on and that is always a good sign that
the winds and freeze has died down. It
was a great hike, the elements kept most of the yuppies at home, so we
basically had the mountain to ourselves.
I’d love to get out more often and will have to make an effort to stay
in shape so these days aren’t so daunting.
But I’ll still do it either way, because it’s my “Happy Place.” Cheers
and enjoy the changing seasons.
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| GPS Track |
Date: 10/11/2014
TH Elevation: 11,307 feet
Mount Flora: 13,146 feet
Total Gained Elevation: 1,875 feet
Class: 2
Distance: 6.38 miles
Time: 3:35 moving,
1:40 stopped
Climbing Partner: Cole
Picture Link: Mount Flora Photo Album
