14,000 ft Mount Columbia!

8/12/2010: Stay at Dan's parent's place around between Boulder & Denver, and hike up mount Columbia with Dan, Kelsie, and Steven (maybe with a ph).

This was a great short trip & before thoroughly getting ready for the Colorado Trail.  After showering and sleeping indoors, we left Thursday afternoon for the mountain.  We made hiked in (3 miles & 1,000 ft up) to a base camp around 11,500 ft.  Here we had a small fire and spent the night.

We made do with what large backpacks we had while hiking to base camp.  The day packs were useful on day two as we didn't want to carry huge backpacks up to the summit. (Dan took a turn carrying both)

 Beautiful Base Camp:

 We each had most of a beer (3 beers for 4 people) cooled off in a mountain stream.
Mostly for the novelty of giving it a go :-)

  The next morning was freezing cold (literally!).  After we got out of our tents, all the condensation turned to drops of ice, and we were quite cold.  We got up at dawn (5:30) and started hiking around 7:30.  We wanted a warm breakfast, hence the 2 hours from awake to hiking.

This trail was not "normal steep."  It was one of the steepest trails I have been on.  2.5 miles from base camp t the summit, but 2,500' elevation gain.  Read: Strenuous

Oh what a glorious sight this was.  We were freezing cold until... well, most of the day.  BUT the sun helped warm us up quite a bit.  :-)  The winds were blowing 20-40 mph (I'm not sure really, but it was cold and i had to hold my had and classy clip on sunglasses on almost the entire time).

Rock scramble / boulder field near the summit.  We were on this for a few hundred yards as we got near the summit.

Summit Pictures!!! :-)

Turns out there are no mirrors on the summit to get ready for pictures... :-)

Ready for the return trip.  (much faster on the way down)