Mt Lady Washington East Ridge June 13th 2011

Although I am tapering for the Bighorn 100 Trail Run starting this Friday morning (June 13th), I was looking for a good opportunity to get in a little more hill training and, more importantly, some exposure to high altitude. After weighing my options, I decided to do the easily accessible east ridge of Mt Lady Washington. This hike has just a touch over 4000 ft of elevation gain/loss, and is somewhere around 9 miles in length, ending up at an altitude of 13281 ft on the summit. Expecting a lot of snow, I donned my Saucony racing spikes and hit the trail.

The trail was totally clear of snow so the going was pretty easy until I neared Goblin’s forest. This is where I hit the first serious patch of snow.

After that, the trail was clear for another 5 or 10 minutes, then became snow packed again. There had been enough traffic on the trail that it wasn’t really an issue though.

I continued on, struggling a bit with the thin air. After 40 minutes, I reached the clearing at the Alpine Brook.

I stopped briefly at the brook and refilled my water bottle, then continued on up the trail. I didn’t get very far when the trail simply disappeared and I just made my way straight uphill through the trees. I postholed around a little bit, but soon found the trail again above treeline and stopped for a minute to enjoy the view from the trail right below Jim’s Grove junction.

The trail was pretty much clear from here on up, so I slogged my way up the steps along Mills Moraine, stopping more and more often due to the increasing problems I was having with the altitude. I finally arrived at Chasm Junction in about 1 1/2 hrs. Pastor John will be happy to know that the sky potty survived the winter with no damage.

Next I turned my sights to the top of Lady Washington. The face appeared to be mostly free of snow, and I just decided to follow the ridge up and see how it went.

I moved slower and slower, and nearly fell down/over a few times on my way up the mountain. My coordination, sight, and thinking skills were being seriously degraded by my lack of acclimatization, so I was taking it easy and picking my route very carefully. I was surprised when, at ~12500 elevation, I looked down and saw flowers! It always amazes me just how tenacious the flora and fauna are in such an inhospitable environment.

A little bit after I spotted the flowers, I was surprised by an unusual noise. My hypoxic brain didn’t register it at first, and I almost stepped right on top of two ptarmigan! I quickly side-stepped to avoid scaring them off, and was able to take a little video of them being their usual silly selves.

Finally I made it to the summit in 2:45. I only stayed around 5 minutes to chat with a couple of climbers from Colorado Springs and take a few pictures, then quickly headed back down to the car, arriving in about 1 1/2 hrs. This is one of my favorite shorter hikes, and I had a great time in nearly perfect weather. I love summer in the Rockies!

Here are a few more pics I took from the summit or on the way back down.