I'd been thinking a lot lately that I've been pretty lucky with my 14er climbs this year - 6 summits out of 6 attempts with no weather problems. Sooner or lately I was going to get rained out, and it finally happened.

Donna, Jake and I drove up to the Elbert Creek campground Saturday afternoon, just a short walk away from the North Mount Elbert trailhead. A light rain fell from about Copper Mountain on to the campsite, and we could see a lot of lightning on Elbert and Massive from Leadville. A cold front was moving through, which often means steady, lingering rain - our prospects didn't look good. We sat in the car for a while at our campite hoping the rain would slow down or stop before setting up our tent. It did, we set up camp, and took a walk over to the trailhead to check it out. Jake got the opportunity to run around a little across the road from our campground, but for most of the night he would be cooped up in a tent or car.

We were to meet Cindy, David and Robin at 19:00 at the trailhead, and though our tent was just 50' from the road I drove over to the trailhead to wait for them - it was raining again and I didn't know how long I would be waiting for them. I drove a little further to check at the Mount Massive trailhead across the road, since my guidebook seemed to indicate that they were one and the same. I went back to the Elbert trailhead and waited a few minutes, then they arrived, right on time! They followed me back to the campsite and we set their tent up in the rain. It would continue to rain all night long, and all 5 of us and the dog sat in their tent and played a modified form of Trivial Pursuit and had a couple beers. Their tent was leaking water and anything around the edges got soaked - including sleeping bags. Donna, Jake and I retired to our tent around 11 to get some sleep. Our tent remained dry all night.

I woke up a few times during the night as usual, and Jake woke me up at 4:30 indicating that he wanted to go out. I noticed the rain had stopped, and put my glasses on to check for stars in the sky. Sure enough, I could see some stars, so my hopes for the climb were good. I let Jake out instead of walking him on his leash, and he decided that he'd been stuck in a tent for too long and started tearing around the area, his tags jingling. I didn't want him waking up the whole campground, including the dog in the next campsite, so I whistled softly for him to come back. He did a few fly-bys, but would not return to the tent. He was quite the brat this trip - this is how he gets when he doesn't get enough exercise to tire him out. Donna and I ended up going after him, and I got him on the leash and back into the tent. I would have liked to have gotten up at that point and packed camp, but I didn't think our other group would be up for a while, so I crawled back in the bag for a while.

The sky became lighter, and I got out and started packing up camp. At about 06:00 the others emerged from their tent, and we learned that they hadn't slept much at all due to the wet sleeping bags. No fun. They decided to bail on the hike, but since it was looking like a nice day Donna and I were going to make an attempt. We packed everything up and hit the trail at 07:00, which is an hour later than I would have liked to start, especially since I was awake before dawn.

Foto ©2000 by John C. Maki

Elbert's Northeast Ridge trail was very nice - wide, smooth, well-maintained, and not muddy at all after all the rain. Much of the trail is at a very low grade, but there were several moderately steep sections, which had to be the case if 4400' of vertical was to be gained in 4-1/2 miles. We broke out of treeline after a couple hours. I noticed that Donna was dragging a bit, which I thought may have been a side effect of the Diamox she took this trip. She was hoping to avoid a repeat performance of the altitude sickness she experienced her last climb on Grays and Torreys Peaks. Some clouds were rolling in around Elbert's summit, and Massive to the north was already socked in. I was thinking we had another 2 hours to go at least, and with Donna moving slower it could take even longer. Would we have enough time to summit before the weather turned bad? Our rain gear was soaked through from the night before so we left it in the car, and we didn't want to get rained on at all on this hike. The clouds were rapidly moving in from the west, and the clouds on Massive had the dark gray bottoms that are characteristic of storm clouds.

After some discussion of whether or not to continue to the next ridge to check on the clouds' progress, we decided to bail at around 12,000'. I did not want to take any chances with lightning, especially since so many people were getting struck this year. The latest I read about in the paper involved a climber on the sheer Diamond face of Longs Peak just last Wednesday. He was about halfway up the face when he was struck by lightning. His companion retreated to get help, but due to bad weather his body could not be recovered until Friday, and he had to be left to dangle from his rope for 2 days. They landed a helicopter on the summit and climbers descended 500' down the face to reach him, and they removed his body on a litter. Longs claims another victim... I think it's important to remember that people die on these peaks, even on easy climbs like Elbert. Keeps things in perspective. For another reality check, see this

After an hour we made it back to the car, and headed for home. From Leadville we could see that Elbert and Massive's summits were both enveloped in dark clouds, so I think we made the right decision to bail. We may have been able to summit before any storms started, but with storm clouds all around you never know when the lightning will strike, and it's a gamble I'm not willing to take. Elbert isn't going anywhere soon, and I know more about it now than I did yesterday!