Leroy & Eric had gone home to New Mexico, leaving me to finish up three days in Colorado's Sawatch Range, tagging 14ers. On the menu for today were Mts. Harvard & Columbia, a combination that makes for a 13.5mi outing with 5,800ft of gain. Mt. Harvard is the third highest summit in CO, a P2K and the highpoint of Chaffee County. A bonus 13er added on the fly would beef up the mileage by about 4mi with another 400ft of gain. All in all, a pretty fun day.
The worst part of the entire outing was the drive to the North Fork TH
south of Harvard & Columbia. Though only 4-5mi in length, the road is in
terrible condition, the worst I've seen of all the canyon roads. A
passenger car can probably make it with care, but rutted conditions would
have me plenty nervous. The TH is hugely popular, too, with room for
dozens of cars at three trailheads found along this road. There are
primitive camping opportunities, though not as much as in some of the
other canyons, and I was lucky to find a quiet spot off the main road on
a Labor Day weekend. I was camped only half a mile from the
North Fork TH,
so it was a short drive in the morning and soon after 6a I was off
and hiking.
Despite the large number of vehicles in the parking lot, I did not find
the trail very busy. Because the outing to these 14ers is longer than
most, some folks choose to backpack in 3-4mi and then do the combo hike
the next day. The trail starts on the north side of the creek but almost
immediately crosses a good bridge to the south side where it continues
for a mile and a half before crossing back to the north side on
another bridge.
Shortly after this is 
a trail junction where one turns right to
head up
into the Horn Fork Basin. The trail climbs north into the basin,
and if you just stay on the main trail, you'll end up at Mt. Harvard. The
side trail to Mt. Columbia is not marked, so if you're heading there, you
better know where to look for it. After about two hours the trail opens
up into meadow and above treeline in the 
upper part of the basin.
Mt. Harvard is impossible to miss, 
directly in front of you.
Above 
Bear Lake
(there is another unsigned trail forking left to Bear Lake),
the last mile
climbs steeply though boulder fields, but luckily the trail does a
good job of civilizing this effort. 
Large cairns
make it hard to miss the
various turns through the rocks. I passed by a few parties in this
section as everyone slowed to a pace commensurate with the steeper
gradient. The trail gives out with about 50ft of gain remaining, coming
dangerously close to class 3 as one makes their way through
the large boulders
found near the summit. It was almost 9:15a by the time I topped out.
There were two parties there before me (others had already started back
down or started on the traverse to Columbia), a couple hanging out in
the rocks and another solo guy who had just arrived ahead of me. I took
a few summit photos for him, then took some photos of my own looking
north, 
east>, 
south and 
west.
Such fine views on a glorious Saturday
morning, the last day of August. Seeing others well to the east already
starting on the traverse to Columbia, I was eager to get started myself
and 
headed off
only a few minutes after I'd reached Harvard. The 
middle part
of the connecting ridgeline is jagged and quite difficult, rated
class 5 by Roach in his guidebook. The usual route goes around the east
side of the ridge, dropping to around 12,800ft before climbing back up to
Columbia from its north side. After a few hundred yards of boulder hopping
east from Harvard's summit, 
a use trail
appears that helps one drop down
and around Pt. 13,516ft. This is a pleasant exercise for the most part,
with one steep section that had a few parties wondering where to go, but
overall a straightforward 
descent off Harvard.
As I was enjoying the use trail, I happened to notice what looked like an
easy peak far to the northeast. Consulting the GPSr, this turned out to be
Peak 13,374ft
with more than 300ft of prominence to make it a ranked
summit. It was 1.6mi from the use trail and after only a little
deliberation
I decided to make the detour. I was very glad I did. The 4mi detour took
me a little over an hour and a half over 
gentle, grassy terrain. The summit had a CMC register in a PVC tube (why do these always
look shredded,
even when only a few years old?). On the return I made a high
traverse around 12,800ft to connect me to the regular Harvard-Columbia
route on the east side of Pt. 13,516ft. As I came across ducks marking
at least one way along the traverse, I spotted two other parties on
the route. The solo climber I had met at Harvard's summit was about ten
minutes ahead of me. A party of two guys were high on Pt. 13,516ft,
perhaps 20min behind me. I followed more ducks through
boulder fields below
the most difficult part of the ridge above. Towards the end of this
section I saw another party of 4-5 with a dog ascending one of
the chutes
leading up to the ridgeline. Though steep and loose, the ridgeline above
should be easier since it was past the difficulties. The solo climber
started following them up that chute while I continued traversing south
at 12,800ft. Eventually I decided to climb up another chute and used
this to gain elevation towards the ridgeline. The other parties thought
differently of their chute ascent, and I saw them traverse across my
chute below me and further south, apparently returning to the more
normal route.
Once on 
the ridge, the going 
gets easy,
at least until one reaches the
base of Columbia on its north side. The final 600ft are steep and
tedious. I spotted the two guys I'd seen earlier, now
maybe ten minutes below
me, having already passed the solo guy and the dog party (I never saw
those parties again). The two guys were obviously very fit and wearing
trail running gear. I kept up a good pace, but they were slowly gaining
on me. If Columbia had been another 100-200ft higher, they would have
beaten me to the summit. As it was, I
reached it by 12:20p, only a few
minutes ahead of them. There was a single woman at the summit who was
happy to have another person to take her photo atop Columbia. She
was surprised that I didn't care to have the favor returned.
When the other two guys appeared, I congratulated them on their speed.
Seems they were four hours from the TH, including the traverse from
Harvard. I was 6hr20min with 1hr30min diversion for the other bonus
peak, so they had a pace almost an hour faster than me. Pretty damn good,
I thought. The descent off Columbia goes south along the continuing
ridge before turning right and
dropping down the west side. There is a
decent use trail the whole way. On the west side, the CFI is building
a new trail with some 
impressive rockwork.
It's scheduled to be opened
next year, but it can be used now for about 2/3 of the
descent down the West Slopes.
The trail eventually reconnects with the Mt. Harvard Trail,
though the junction is unmarked. There are, in fact, several trails
to reconnect with the main trail. I missed the first obvious one, and
used a second one that worked almost as well. Once back on
the main trail,
I still had almost 4mi to return to 
the trailhead. I got back
by 2:36p, pretty close to the 2:30p estimate I had given myself when I
was contemplating going to Peak 13,374ft hours earlier - not bad!
Following what has become a regular routine, I showered, drove back to
Buena Vista, hung out at the public library until they kicked me out,
then found early dinner on Main St at the Trailhead Eatery. Inspired by
the buffalo I saw on my drive back to town,
I had bison ravioli as the main course. Mmmmmm....
Continued...