Mt. Harvard Trip Report

Trail: South Slopes II, Class 2, 12.6 miles, 4550 ft elevation gain  

It was Saturday, September 3rd and Jen convinced me to get out of bed at 2:30 in the morning and go hike a Sawatch mountain. I haven't been in the Sawatch for awhile now as I have come to dislike the range.  Sure it's pretty and the views are great but it's hard to find much approaching even a scrambling route and if I wanted long hikes I could do it allot closer to home.  On the flip side I am a bit obsessive and have put finishing the 14ers as one of my goals so I knew I'd have to go back.

We pretty much just packed light day packs as the forecasts was looking good and headed off for the trailhead.  I was toying with the notion of doing both peaks but didn't feel all that motivated to do the 2.2 mile ridge that day.  The approach we took was from the North Cottonwood Trailhead and the parking lot was packed. 

Jen and I started up the trail around 6:30 or so in the morning and were pleasantly greeted by the stream which meanders next to the path for the first few miles.  Our hike went smoothly but Jen was moving a little slowly  (she had given blood two days before) so I said we should just take our time and enjoy ourselves and I'd skip the ridge traverse (not much of a sacrifice).  After this we walked up into Horn Fork Basin at a leisurely pace and enjoyed the views along the way.  Horn Fork Basin was very pretty and the weather was holding nicely so we continued up to the summit and arrived around 10:30. 



This was my 43rd 14er and Jen's 19th.  I'm feeling pretty good about our hikes and climbs together this summer.  The last summer we didn't do much together but now Jen seems to be really enjoying these trips.  We no longer argue or fight and generally have a great time together.  I guess a little patience on both our parts has made this a good part of our lives together. 

We sat on the summit and enjoyed the views for awhile and then headed back down.  We passed allot of people coming up but this is pretty typical of a day in the Sawatch.  I don't quite remember when we got back to the car but the whole thing took us less than 8 hours.  4 more Sawatch to go then it's goodbye to this range for awhile. 

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