Last weekend, Erika and I (along with friends, Kelly and Emi) climbed our first 14er! We picked Bierstadt since it’s in the Front Range (easy to get to from Denver), is supposed to be relatively easy, and trail reports/weather indicated it should be pretty clear. We weren’t alone; there were a ton of people up there with us.

Erika and I had to get up at 3:45 so that we could get out of here in time to get to the trail for a 5:45 start. We got there, but hadn’t banked on no cell reception (duh), and so we didn’t find Kelly and Emi, and get on the trail until more like 6am (in the complete dark, so yay for headlamps). On the way up, we were treated to a crazy multi-color sunrise, blasted against the surrounding peaks and clouds.

The hike was actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but Bierstadt is a very well maintained trail, and I had been doing a lot of backpacking and hiking and stuff at pretty decent elevation in the weeks leading up, so that definitely helped. The views all the way up were amazing… enough to make you jump around like a nutter.

The scene at the top was pretty bizarre. It felt like a bit of a party up there, with everyone celebrating their summit, grabbing photos, and stopping for some food. We took a bunch of pictures of course, using one of the signs that were up there already. We also had a small flask of Stranahan’s Snowflake (special distillation) whiskey, from the “Mt. Bierstadt” batch, so that felt über-appropriate.

Once we had our photos, and had recovered a bit, it was time to head back down again. We got ourselves together, and then hustled down. A highlight of the hike back down was definitely the random Coors-dude, who was wearing a cape, and basically running up the mountain with a backpack full of Coors (which we scored one of). By the time we got to the bottom it had been just over 6 hours round-trip, which is OK for our first one I think.

Since it didn’t completely kill us, we’re now both keen to try out some more; Grays and Torreys are next (this weekend)!