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I had been planning for quite some time to hike Elbert to propose to my
girlfriend. We had very busy weeks leading up to this weekend, having started
the closing process on a house, two plane trips for Leah, and I had climbed three
fourteeners Memorial weekend. It took a lot of convincing to get Leah to agree to
come on a hike with me after all of the hustle and bustle lately. We got a late
start getting out of town at around 6:30 am. Arriving at the South Elbert trailhead
was somewhat problematic, as the 4x4 road is not well marked. We started on the
trail at 9:00 am, the latest start since a bad experience we had on Redcloud Peak with
the weather in 2000. Leah was very tired and difficult to motivate. She didn't
sense that there was anything significant about the day, although I had to tell her
there was a reward to get her to go in the first place. We came near treeline at
10:00 am, shown in the photo on the right. |
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The trail was a little steep in sections getting to treeline, but was quite
pleasant for a fourteener trail. We made our way on the straight-forward trail
leading up to a small ridge somewhat slowly, taking it easy. From the ridge,
views of Mt. Massive predominated views to the north, while Elbert loomed in front
of us. On the left is a view up the gentle trail to the ridge. We hadn't seen
too many people yet, which surprised me for the time of year. Later we would see
that this was because of our late start as the crowd came down past us. The weather
had been fantastic, and I wasn't very worried about our pace as far as getting to the
summit after noon. We took a short break after completing the ridge to the point
just below the switchbacks. |
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The switchbacks were very short in length before the turns, and in excellent
condition for such a heavily traveled mountain. On the right is a view of the
ridge up to the southern side of Mt. Elbert's summit. After completing the switchbacks,
a mellow and flat trail leads west which we followed to the next set of switchbacks.
Some dark clouds were developing to the west and headed towards Elbert. It was
about noon at this point, and we became a little more concerned. After slow
movement up the switchbacks, I opted to give Leah a piggyback ride up for a good
portion of the remaining route. The summit was snow plastered on the south side,
which made it easy to target for the rest of the hike. There were a couple wind
cairns at different high points on the summit crest which actually might have been
useful at this point. |
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So here came the big moment. Taking off my pack and snapping some pictures,
I reached into the pack and put the ring in my pocket. I walked over to a pair
of hikers who arrived at the summit shortly after we did. I asked them to take some
shots of the event. Turns out that the were from KBPI radio. So I had D-Mac taking
pictures of the event! We were actually talking about an insane bet they had made
relating to the Colorado Avalanche loss the day before- some coincidence. Luckily
for me, Leah said yes, otherwise I would have been a good laughing piece for Monday
morning's show. |