Mount Yale

After our decision to focus on 14ers, we hitched a ride and slept in charming Gunnison, Colorado - a town of 5,000 with one foot firmly planted in its soul.  Even though it has a Walmart, the bookstore and shops at its thriving centre evinced a sense of simple, homespun community.  

After a great coffee at The Bean, we were on a mission - soon collecting our rental truck from the small local airport, where we were surprised to learn they land 747s in winter!

The day was clear and angelic, and after a winding 3 hour drive we were at the base of Mount Yale, ready to start the hike at about 2pm. The guidebook said to allow 8 hours, but we figured that as we'd ascended Elbert in 6 hours when the guidebook said 9, it must be a wimpy guidebook. We would rue that assumption. 

The first couple of hours of the hike meandered up and down, and we couldn't understand why this climb was rated difficult. Bubbling streams and lush forest undergrowth unfolded forever, but finally gave way to a proper hike about 4pm, when the tree line gave way to mountainous views. 

After a good hour or so, the incline got pretty steep for a hike, and we thought we understood the rating. 

The thin air and sharp climb strained the system; it was slow going.  But my heart and breathing were normal - it's hard to describe but I could tell the fatigue reflected the effort. There were none of the sharp inhales like before. 

Finally about 530 pm we were on the cusp of the summit. There was no clear trail, so we ended up climbing up a jungle gym like rock formation, to enjoy a truly exalted view. 

We were surrounded by mountains on all sides,

And truly felt like we were on top of the world. 

Charlotte was both relaxed and excited at the same time - her first 360 view summit. 

It was about 630, and I realized I'd forgotten to pack the headlamps. First mistake. The sun sets about 830 around here, and we had a big hike down. Then, from the summit we could see what looked like a trail meandering down the west side of the mountain, towards the north side where our trail had ended. Second mistake - I broke one of the cardinal rules - unless you know the mountain, go down the way you came up. 

I had assumed I'd just missed the trail, but it proved not to be a trail, and now rather than a simple jungle gym climb down to our trail, we were about 100 foot down the wrong side of the mountain, scaling our way across to the north side. The climb itself was easy (5.4ish, for the climbers out there), but that wasn't the point. It was untested, the rock could be loose, the drop was mild but still looked painful, I was leading Charlotte, who'd never done any climbing so needed to go slow for her, but it was also getting late, and we had a big hike down the mountain with no headlamps, so I needed us to have some urgency. In short, it was a far edgier situation than was needed (like the pun?). 

 

Perhaps the most worrying part was that, owing to the thin air my own thinking wasn't very clear. I can't explain it now - it wasn't altitude sickness as described online.  I had no headache or nausea, my movement was dexterous, and my energy was strong. But Charlotte told me that I repeated myself on several occasions and I was surprised to hear it - I didn't remember saying whatever the previous time..!  At one point, I couldn't remember the code to unlock my own phone! 

So I can only say my head was in the air, which I guess explains why I would try to descend a different route (but it did look like a trail!!)

Regardless, it was 730pm by the time we got to the head of our trail at the cusp of the summit, with a long way down. 

The impending sunset looked gorgeous, but we had no time to enjoy it. 

We then ran down the trail as quickly as the steep incline would allow. Looking back, it was pretty exciting - we jumped and ran and did a mountain version of parkour, but at the time we had no idea how far we would get with the light we had. It was intense. 

Finally, we just got to the meandering bit of the hike just as the dark night descended.  We walked hand in hand for the last hour of the hike, swimming in the shared exhilaration of what we'd just experienced.