Pikes Peak From Barr Trail, Fourteener #1

April 26, 2012 For our first fourteener of 2012 Andre and I decided to use some of the backpacking gear I acquired while working at REI. We set out to hike Pikes Peak again, this time from Barr Trail. We made reservations at Barr Camp to pitch a tent the night before our ascent to the summit. We started out early afternoon and took a break a few miles up near the experimental forest.

Andre taking a quick breather

Ready to start hiking again!

Almost to Barr Camp, we could see the summit. It was a beautiful day, it wasn't too hot, wasn't too cold, probably in the 60's somewhere. We thought the trip would be smooth sailing with the weather the way it was. Seven miles later we reached Barr Camp and pitched our tent.

Barr Camp was unusually empty, it must have been the time of year... There was only one other camper there who was staying in the cabin, and he was a little weird. He had hiked up with a laptop case full of clothes and a sleeping bag hanging around his neck. He was intent on making it to the summit although he did not appear to have the correct clothing or gear... The weather changed almost as soon as we had our tent up, winds of 60-70 miles an hour along with severe lightening storms and rain made for a restless and miserable night. The lightening was very close to our tent at first, it was pretty terrifying. When morning finally came we were not sure we even wanted to try and make it to the summit. We went to the cabin and ate breakfast to think it over, somehow found ourselves on the trail again. Almost immediately past Barr Camp there was snow, and at first it was a nice change of scenery. We quickly passed the weirdo with a laptop case and soon made our way to the A-frame, shortly past timberline things got really, really windy and cold.

Before A-Frame

We realized that aside from a lonely set of footprints in the snow we were the only ones on the mountain. Right past A-frame before things got really bad.

Shortly after A-frame the wind became brutal. It was snowing and blowing, but we decided to push on. We started getting into several feet of snow, it became hard to see, at times hard to breathe because of the wind. Eventually we found out who the footprints in front of us belonged to. A man was coming down as we were going up, and he asked us if we were going to the summit, we told him we were trying our best. He was turning back because he couldn't find the trail in the snow, so instead he just joined us and we somehow managed to find the trail (most of the time). We eventually found a sign that said we were two miles from the summit, this gave us some hope and we decided to push on. Two miles seemed like an eternity, the wind got worse the higher in elevation we went, at times all three of us were blown over at the same time, and would just sit there laying in the snow. We became slightly desperate to get to the top, we were all talking about buying a ticket to take the cog down. We were all talking and thinking about the warm summit house, the snacks at the top etc. These two miles took several hours because of how deep the snow was, but somehow, somehow we finally made it to the summit. Our hopes were completely crushed when we realized that the summit house, the cog, and the road were all closed due to the severe weather. We were becoming so desperate we thought about calling someone to come and get us, or even search and rescue, but out of the three of us no one had a signal. At this point any exposed flesh was in severe danger of becoming frost bitten. We had no time for summit photos but snapped a quick one of me by the sign before we bolted down the mountain.

Our only summit photo We ran/slid down the mountain as quickly as possible. We made it to the A-fram quickly and the weather was much better. We took a quick break there and then made it back down to Barr Camp. The lady with running the place told us the guy with the laptop bag never made it to the summit and headed home a long time ago. (We figured this since we had all the proper equipment and barely made it ourselves). We packed our gear and headed down the trail, this part was the worst, we were tired and wishing more than anything we didn't have our packs, but we made it to our car Friday evening. 26 miles in all we did it! And in some pretty hardcore conditions too! It was harder than the other two times I've done this mountain, mainly because of the weather, but also because of the packs. Glad its over but also glad we made it to the top!