Mt. Bierstadt
What would a hiking trip in Colorado be without attempting to climb a 14er? Or so we heard!
Granted, we did travel up Pikes Peak, but we figured driving up in your car was kind of cheating. So we looked online and found a “beginner 14er” if you will in Mt. Bierstadt and planned to get a proper 6 AM start.
Unfortunately, we were somewhat exhausted from our travels so …uh…6 AM didn’t happen…We finally arrived to the Mt. Bierstadt parking lot at a comfortable 10:30 am, right about when other hikers were FINISHING their trek. Yikes.
We thought we were well prepared with about 3 L of water and some hefty Cliff peanut butter protein bars, but we were recognized as first timers almost immediately. A kind group of 3 travelers who had just completed their hike gifted us some extra water bottles and string cheese, warned us to be below the tree-line before 2 PM in case of thunderstorms, and proclaimed us ready for the mountain!
Per online sources, the hike up Mt. Bierstadt is approximately 7 mile round trip with 2,850 feet in elevation gain. We had already driven up Guanella Pass to get to the parking lot which starts around 11,670 feet. We figured we could hike the whole trail in about 5 hours.
The first leg of the mountain is no problem. It’s a relatively flat path past a lake and through the willows. Much of this part of the hike is along a wooden path although there are times when you are jumping across streams. Once the trail begins to climb, you pass the tree-line fairly quickly, and the hike only gets progressively more challenging from there. This was reiterated by everybody passing us on their way back down the mountain.
The middle portion of the hike does afford some gorgeous views of the wildflowers, cute marmots, and the surrounding mountains. There are plenty of areas to pause and catch your breath under the guise of taking in the scenery.
The last mile or so was just a haze of effort as Brad plowed upward through the rocks and Erin tried her best to keep up. Eventually, the “path” is just a series of boulders with the occasional patch of snow and the much appreciated set of guiding cairns from climbers past. We recommend bringing extra layers for the top. Even with our fleece jackets, we decided we had had enough bitter wind at the base of the last steep incline. With the peak in sight, we were satisfied that we had made it almost to the top of our first 14er.
We took our time on the way down, no longer worried about storms, as the sky was still clear. We finally reached our car around 4 pm, with almost depleted water and food supplies. But as we nursed our sore muscles that night, we were proud that we hiked up to about 13,800 feet (correlated with online pictures), which in our minds rounds up to 14,000. Right? Right!
Here‘s some more in depth details on Mt. Bierstadt.
