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| Hiking | 14.16 Miles |
4,622 AEG |
| | Hiking | 14.16 Miles | 9 Hrs | | 1.72 mph |
| 4,622 ft AEG | 45 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | I have been wanting to go to Colorado over the last couple of months, but active monsoon weather patterns kept me away until now.
I decided to hike up to Mount Harvard -- it's the 3rd highest peak in Colorado, and the 4th highest in the continental US (a mere 80 feet lower than Mount Whitney). Best of all, it is a Colorado County highpoint (Chaffee County) and a P2K peak.
The first 5 miles were basically a class 1 hike, with the first 4 miles being in trees. Things got more "interesting" in mile 5, with a half mile or so grind through a talus/boulder field. The last mile to the summit was really steep, gaining around 1,300-1,400 feet in elevation. A lot of this was what I would call class 2 scrambling. Even though this is billed as a class 2 hike, I thought that part of the final scramble to the summit was class 3, and borderline sketchy class 3 at that.
About 30 seconds before I got to the summit a group of 9 hikers came out of no where and got to the summit. They had been backbacking and came across a ridgeline. They were about the only hikers that I saw all day, and I did my best to contain my enthusiasm at arriving at the summit at the same time that they did.
I managed to scramble down off the summit block at about the same route that I came up, and the descent went pretty slow on the tough terrain.
There was lots of water in creeks and lakes on the hike.
Views at the summit and along the way were good, but not as good as some other peaks in Colorado that I can think of.
This hike was tougher than I thought that it would be. I have done 21 14ers, and I'd say that this one and a day hike to Mount Whitney were the 2 toughest. In some respects, Harvard was harder than Whitney. |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
There were a few flowers and mushrooms here and there, but not a whole lot. |
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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