by: Rock Cogar. [August 28, 1997]
Three Included Photos.
On July 22, 1997, my wife, Terri, my son Colin and I left Salida at 06:00
for the Mt. Yale trailhead. Because the trailhead (at 9500') is on the paved
road to Cottonwood pass we were able to start our hike by 07:00.
First a little background. We are not very typical hikers. First we are all
triathletes. Colin, 16, is mainly a track and very fast cross country
runner. Terri and I are both Ironman triathletes with 4 finishes between us
as well as bunches of marathons. However fit we are, we live in Tennessee at
a 1000 foot elevation with only the Smokies to "train" on. Preparation for
us was to run up and down Mt. LeConte (1500' -> 6500' -> 1500') all in
forest (20 miles). While our mountains are of moderate height they offer us
no experience on rocks or in treeless environments!
The trail climbed slowly northwards through tall spruce - fir forest. In
fact the rate of climb was so small up to the very high local treeline
(about 12,200') that I knew that the upper half of the trail would be quite
steep. We encountered our first snow at 12,000' in the forest.
Beyond treeline, the slopes were steep, perhaps 1500' per mile. It was tough
to make steady progress without forcing a breathing rate that simulated mile
repeats on the track. We took are first stop at about 13,000' at the base of
a large snowfield in the bottom of Mt. Yale's large southwestward facing
cirque at around 09:00.
Next we encountered a very tight array of switchbacks that climbed the
cirque headwall to the saddle at around 13,800'. In the saddle, we stopped
to put on more clothes at 10:00 where the temperature was probably in the
mid 40s, breezy, with building cumulus clouds all around, especially on Mt.
Antero to the south.
Next we faced a rough exposed summit ridge with no hint of a trail. Our lack
of experience really slowed us down from here on. While Terri and Colin made
slow steady progress to the summit by 11:00, my moderate fear of edges had
me climbing up even slower (really less steady). By the time (11:20) Terri
and Colin had summited, taken pictures and started down, I was still stuck
about 150' lower trying to get around or over a set of giant (12'?) vertical
boulders. Given that it was raining and hailing just up-weather (southwest)
we had to start our descent. Clearly an earlier start would have been better
on that day.
As this was just my second fourteener attempt (the first, Tabeguache did not
go well, we only got to 13,600 before storms), I did not really mind not
quite making it to the summit (However, I did summit on Elbert and Quandary
during the next two days).
As usual for the trip back, we changed into dry shirts, added sweaters, rain
jackets, gloves and hats for the cool hike down through the first drops of
rain mixed with corn snow. At this point we began to see numerous hikers
coming up out of the cirque. We were quite surprised to see how light most
of these folks traveled, most wore tee shirts and shorts, carried water
bottles and had no packs of any kind!
As we made are way rapidly downward through increasing hail, rain and
lightening, we kept encountering more and more lightly clad hikers moving
upwards. Apparently, we were the only ones that took the storm seriously. I
guess that most of the Yale bound hikers did not realize that ground
strikes, hail covered rock or hypothermia could affect THEM!
Once we returned to the forest at around 12,000', we had a leisurely lunch
in light rain while we watched lightening strike the peaks to the south. It
is amazing how comfortable you can be in sub 50 degree rain when you are
wearing a quality (gore-tex clone) rainsuit!
After lunch we had an uneventful hike back to the trailhead by around 14:00.
Not bad, 12 miles round trip in 7 hours with 4700' of climb and 4700' of
descent. Mt. Yale is worth doing again.
Photos and Descriptions:
