We took the 4Runner about half a mile up Forest Road 125B before the snow and road conditions became too sketchy to continue. In the summer I imagine it’s not too difficult a drive.

As this was a training weekend for our upcoming Denali trip, we each strapped about 60lbs to the sleds in addition to our packs and hauled them up about 1,000 feet through mud and snow to the East Ridge Trailhead. We dug out a bit of snow and set up camp for the night next to the summer parking lot.

We stepped out of camp to practice some rope skills when we realized we had a visitor. A fox was making its way through our camp looking for food. We would spend the rest of the evening scaring it off until we buried all of our food in the snow outside of camp.

We started up the trail around 6:15am with about 35lb each (for training) and made our way up through the Aspen trees. The snow was pretty well packed in and didn’t have many issues with the snowshoes. We would spend the entire day in snowshoes and I’m glad we had them, especially as the sun started to soften the snow. 

The South Mount Elbert Trail (that links up with the East Ridge) is the standard winter route up to Mount Elbert. As long as you stay on the ridge line up above treeline it’s a pretty tame winter hike with no major exposure or avalanche risk (at least when we were up there). It is one of the most accessible winter 14ers in Colorado.

There were some strong gusts from time to time but overall we had a pretty perfect day for a 14er. After a long series of ridge-lines we had made it up to the false summit. Another 20 minutes of hiking brought us to the top of Mount Elbert at 12:30pm, the highest peak in Colorado. The wind had picked up so we descended about 100 feet for our summit beers and a snack before trudging our way back down the mountain to camp. 

We got back to camp and dug out our duffels at 4:00pm, set up the sleds once again, and dragged them back to the car. We were on the road by 5 and made a pit stop at Outer Range Brewing in Frisco on the way back home. In total with the sleds and weighted packs the hike took us about 11 hours to cover 4,900 feet and 15 miles.