Mt. Elbert
- Compleated: Mar 11, 2007
- 14,433 ft.
Woke up a 4:30am in Leadville at mine and Josh's web designers house, Matt O'Brien. I will be hiking Mt Elbert without Josh, he has a lot of business to take care of in the valley. He will be hiking Elbert soon and posting on this page as well! I attempted to hike Elbert on Saturday but just didn't work out. I arrived at 11pm at the south trail head and tried to get some sleep before 5:15 but was too cramped to sleep. Got stuck in the snow and thus spent my breakfast time trying to get out. Still tried to hike for 3 hours with no sleep and still hungry..but my intuition told me to turn around. Glad I did. I met Ben Connors from 14ers.com I got a Full nights rest, full breakfast and it was going to be a Sunny day. Thanks Matt and 14ers.com! I arrive at 6am to meet Ben waiting for me at the south trail head. We shake hands and he grabs his gear and hops into my trooper. We go down the trail head about .7 of a mile and park. Will was camping there and glad we drove up and woke him up, he missed his alarm clock. Ben and I are geared up at 6:46am and hit the trail. Still 75% dark and the moon was beautiful.
Ben and I get through the aspens, seemed to be the steepest park aside from the top half of the East Ridge. It was tracked already thanks to folks from 14ers.com from the past two weeks. It was also powder and soft. We finally get to see the East Ridge once out of the aspens. The sun was shining and the surrounding views looked beautifully surreal. Will catches up with us on his snowshoe with a ear to ear smile. We chat a moment and let him lead the way.
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Above pics are of Mt Elbert's Chutes. They are in the middle of the East and North East Ridges. Ben and I scope out the chutes and study our lines for a bit. That is when John Sounders hikes up to us and he see the far North East chute surface avalanche. That changed my line choice to either the 3rd-4th chute from skiers left.
Ben, Will, John and I get to the top around 12:50. Breath taking views 360 degrees due to the blue sky's. We all get some food in us and take some pics. Will and John head down first to get ready to take some pics of Ben and I snowboarding the chutes. Ben and I are Getting geared up to snowboard the chutes. We meet a nice female who we didn't get her name but she was hiking solo and said this was her 18th 14er. She also stated she was on 14ers.com a lot. You go girl! Ben takes the skiers (riders) right. I was eying the skiers far left of the Box Creek Cirque on the hike up, but we saw a surface avalanche down that chute. That made me change my mind to find either the 3rd-4th chute .
So sweet to have gotten to snowboard in Powder on Mt Elbert! Ben and I was so stoked. Thanks to John Sounders for hanging around on the East ridge and photographing us! I was carrying point-and-shoot camera on video down the chute in my left hand. About 70% of the footage is up and down and might make you puke or dizzy. I will get a helmet cam shortly! I might post the video on this page just to show you WHY a helmet cam would be the better choice:) Ben and I take our time hiking back up the East ridge. It was almost 2pm once back on the ridge. We sit for a few and take in the beauty. Then we strap back in and off we go again riding in the powder and shaving off some vertical to the tree line. Walk for maybe 300 yards and strap back in. We finally get back to the trooper around 3:50pm. We say our good byes to John and Will who we met on the trail. Thanks for such a wonderful filled day!
