Fall colors and Mt. Elbert

We've been wanting to hike a 14er all summer and we finally got the opportunity! We took our camper out to Clear Creek just south of Leadville and camped on the west side of Clear Creek reservoir. We picked the perfect weekend to head out there! The aspen leaves were changing and they were at their peak. On Saturday we drove up to Winfield, then back to the Huron Peak trailhead. We took lots of great pictures there, but the best ones were on our drive to check out the Mt. Elbert trailhead for the next day. The 4x4 road to the trailhead drives through an amazing aspen grove! The picture below is one of the shots from this road.



You can see more of our fall pictures here.

On Sunday we woke up early and headed back out to the Mt. Elbert trailhead. We were the first ones at the trailhead and started hiking just after 6:00am. It was still dark out, so we had to use our headlamps for the first 1/4 to 1/2 mile. The start of the trail is part of the Colorado Trail and it's a nice, easy start through the aspen trees. Once you get to the split of the Colorado Trail & Mt. Elbert trail, the hiking gets a little tougher as the uphill climb begins. Even though the trail gains 4100 ft in elevation over 4 miles, it wasn't too bad. The trail is a really nice trail and it follows a ridge all the way up the east side of the mountain.

Below is a picture of Mt. Elbert in the distance from the trail. We're just above timberline at this point.


As we continued up the ridge, we hit some places where the wind started to pick up. We even had some light snow on and off. The trail levels out a little before the summit and winds around the south side of the mountain - it was a nice break from the wind. Just below the summit, it winds up some switchbacks through the rocks and the next thing you know, you're there! The storm clouds were blowing in and the wind was definitely ripping across the NW side of the summit. We had the summit to ourselves, so I pulled out the gorrilla-pod and took family photos.



Our fingers were getting colder, so we took a few more pictures, then headed back down the trail to find a warmer place for lunch. We saw about 8-10 other people headed up the mountain as we were headed down. While going down the trail, we realized that the trail was steeper than we thought! There was a large rock on the side of the trail, so we leaned up against it and had our PB & honey sandwiches and the pups got a snack too. After the nice break, we continued to go down, and down, and down... The views along the trail were amazing, so we stopped quite a bit to soak it all in. As we got back to timberline, we went through the wonderful aspen groves that were dark when we started the hike. When we got back to the Mt. Elbert sign at the bottom, we saw another couple that volunteered to take our picture. Quite a bit different than the picture we took early that morning!

Overall, hiking Mt. Elbert was really enjoyable. The trail is great and the scenery is amazing! It is definitely a hike worth doing and it's nice to be able to say we hiked to the highest point in both Colorado and the Rocky Mountains!

You can see more pictures from our hike here.