Mount Harvard

We left Colorado Springs at 5:00 a.m. We made it to the trailhead and started the hike at 7:30 a.m. The first part of the hike doesn't gain much altitude and follows Horn Fork Creek. You can't beat the sounds of the water flowing over rocks and the wind blowing through the Aspens! I could have just sat there on the trail all day. The climb went slowly for it was my first this summer and I was in poor shape and Scott had been living at sea level a week and a half before the climb. Scott didn't have good boots so I think he yelled at his boots the whole 12 mile round trip. The trail was very muddy in spots and we seemed to stay in the trees forever. There were many forks on the trail and only one was marked. We used the book to determine where the Columbia trail branched off and took the trail towards Mt. Harvard. The next unmarked fork we took the wrong turn by not crossing the creek and ended up at a dead end. We made our way back to the creek and crossed right into a campsite. The campers were very friendly. They showed us where the trail was, said they had climbed Harvard the day before, and wished us good luck. We now hiked out of the trees and into the valley surrounded by mountains. In the spot I stood I had the Continental Divide to the west, Mount Yale to the south( picture on right), Mount Columbia to the east, and Mount Harvard to the north. As we increased in altitude, we had to cross many patches of snow. The trail was getting steeper and there was more talus to climb. I am not very sure-footed so I had to climb slower over the rocks. It started to rain about 12:00 p.m. so I was even more cautious on the slippery rocks. The final 20 feet was the hardest. Trying to find an easy way to climb the boulders to the top was difficult. I finally pulled myself to the top at 12:45. I never imagined taking 5 hours and 15 minutes to summit this mountain. Scott summited at 1:05 and asked me why we didn't climb a shorter mountain. As I waited on top alone, I took a picture of a marmot posing on a rock (left) and tried to identify other mountains in the distance. It continued to rain and the gray clouds got darker and started heading our way. We left the top about 1:15. We decided that it was too late to try the ridge for Columbia (below) and the weather would not be in our favor so we headed back towards the car. We each got scraped up going across a snow bank. Falling through the snow and finding rocks scraped up our legs and Scott hyper-extended his knee. I turned to take a picture of Mount Harvard (top of page) while the rain had died down. We were back in the middle of the valley at 2:12 when the entire sky lit up followed immediately by thunder. I turned around to see how Scott was doing to see him running in my direction. He asked, "What do we do?" I replied, "We need to get the heck out of here." This lead to a faster pace and a discussion of what we need to do if we feel or hear electricity. That is the closest I have been to a lightening encounter at high elevation. Nothing like lightening above treeline. At 6'4" I am the tallest object around (besides the mountains of course). About 2:30 to 3:00 we had a downpour of rain. My gortex boots kept my feet dry but the rest of me was soaked. We had been careful not to walk through the mud, puddles, and the creek on the way up. Going down we either didn't care or didn't have the energy to walk around. It stopped raining when we got back into the trees. I felt like we were walking the never ending trail. We both remembered crossing a bridge but thought it was much closer than it was. We made it back to the Jeep at 4:15 p.m. and we were totally exhausted. It took us 15 minutes just to get everything in the car and put on dry socks. We stopped at the truck stop just south of Buena Vista. There we called home and picked up some snacks and then headed home. We made it back to Colorado Springs at 7:00 p.m.

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