Bierstadt and Evans

As the last weekend of September approached, I felt a nagging urge to do something Coloradan. Few things are more Coloradan than climbing 14ers, the state's 54 mountains surpassing 14,000 feet. So I woke up at 4:30 a.m. the last Saturday of September and set off for the Rockies.

Guanella Pass, twelve miles up a narrow switchbacked road from the small town of Georgetown, provides parking and a trailhead with access to two 14ers: Mt. Bierstadt (14,060 feet) and Mt. Elbert (14,264 feet). You can do a loop trail hitting both summits, but the catch is you have to cross a steep, serrated connecting ridge known as The Sawtooth (which is exactly what it looked like silhouetted by the rising sun). 

Summiting Mt Bierstadt was easy enough. Mountain goats and blinding white morning light welcomed me as I neared the top, three miles and a 2,850 vertical feet from the trailhead. I examined the aptly-named ridgeline below to my north. It looked tough but traversable and, as I snacked, I resolved to press onward to Mt. Evans.

The hardest part of The Sawtooth is the beginning when the trail descends down the other side of Bierstadt. I took it slowly, taking extra precaution around loose rocks and patches of ice. About an hour or so later I had negotiated my way around the gendarmes and to the other side of the rock bridge between the two mountains.

Across The Sawtooth, the trail opens up into a slanted, boulder-strewn field. The way the terrain just drops off drew to mind the edge of the world. A long, oxygen-deprived trudge later, I was at the top of Evans. The highest paved road in America leads to the summit, but it had already been closed for the season so I had the glorious pinnacle at the top of everything almost all to myself. Just two or three other people were within eyeshot and there was plenty of space. Endless space, above everything.

I was exhausted by the time I closed the ten mile loop back at the parking lot in the early afternoon. But I had succeeded in my mission of doing something Coloradan. I have now reached the tops of two Colorado 14ers. Just 52 to go.

Return to the District

Two weekends back, I spent a long weekend in the DC/Maryland/Virginia bubble. My primary reason for returning was to attend a dear friend's wedding but there were also a lot of other friends to see and familiar terrain to revisit.

I arrived in DC on Friday afternoon and wandered from Columbia Heights to Downtown to Georgetown before meeting up with friends from my time living there. On Saturday morning, I rented a car and drove to Frederick, Maryland for the sunset wedding at a beautiful country club. The ceremony was followed by a reception, dinner, and dancing.

On Sunday morning after the wedding, I drove back to DC, stopping at Great Falls, Virginia on the way. Here the Potomac chews through rock as it drops sharply in its journey towards the capital then on to the Chesapeake. In the nearly four years I'd lived in DC, I never once made it to Great Falls.

Great Falls doesn't come close to the gorges of Colorado, but it does have a certain primeval charm. The effect was especially pronounced when I first got there early in the morning with heavy mist still hanging in the air and blotting out the the sun.

I dropped off my rental car in downtown DC then brunched with more friends in Chinatown. In true DC fashion, I metroed to Reagan National Airport to fly home. I was glad to land in Colorado and watch the sun set behind the mountains as I drove back into Denver.

DC is a vibrant, bustling place, but I'm not quite sure now what I used to see in it. I like the scenery and pace of life here in the West so much better.

Mt. Falcon Mountain Park

For my first mountain excursion since arriving in Denver, I ventured out to Mt. Falcon Mountain Park in Jefferson County about 40 minutes outside the city. I got there just after 7:00 a.m. on an early September weekend when there were hardly any cars in the parking lot. By the time I left a little past 10:00 a.m., the lot was full of cars battling for a spot. The secret to avoiding the crowds in Colorado it seems is arriving early.

The mountain park's miles of trails cut through high country meadows and past vistas overlooking Front Range foothills, the distant and hazy skyline of Denver, and Red Rocks Amphitheater just to the northeast. The trail also pass ruins of pioneer homesteads from a more rugged time. High up on one cliff facing the Rockies sits the cornerstone of what was to be the "Western White House," a summer palace built as a gift to the president. Funding dried up soon after construction began, however, and it never got built.