Harvard and Columbia Trip

Buena Vista, CO 2-4 September 2007

We finally got a chance to try out Karin's new pack and our new lightweight tent, and what an adventure it was! We drove down to Buena Vista on Sunday morning and packed into the Horn Fork Basin (~3.5 miles) between Mts. Harvard (14,420 ft.) and Columbia (14,073 ft.) Our plan was to climb Mt. Harvard first, then do the traverse between the two peaks, which involves descending Harvard's east ridge then descending to ~12,800 feet and skirting to the east the cliff bands that connect Harvard and Columbia. (Braver parties who are willing to carry gear into the basin can continue directly on the ridge, climbing the Rabbits (YDS 5.7) along the way.)

The alarm went off at 5:00am on Monday morning (Labor Day) and the effort of sounding the beeper killed my watch battery, so for the rest of the day, I thought it was just 5 o'clock. We set out for Harvard at 6:00am, summited around 8:20am, and after a brief respite on the summit of Harvard, set out on the traverse at 8:40am. The initial part of the traverse went well, but we hit some routefinding snags at the descent to 12,800 - ended up descending a scree gully and went too low as a result. We got back onroute (accompanied by me kissing the first cairn we saw - see photos for proof!) and worked our way through the boulders to the broad platform below the summit of Columbia. We summited Columbia at 1:20pm as thunderstorms were starting to form in the Arkansas valley. We boogied past the summit and descended the west slopes of Columbia back towards camp. The best thing I can say about the west slopes is that there weren't any people on it when we were going down - a sustained 25% grade (with patches of steeper terrain) is hell on your legs, and three days later, we're still pretty sore from the descent.

We made it back to camp after a leisurely descent of Columbia and enjoyed dinner in the on-again, off-again rain showers, and hit the rack early. Harvard and Columbia were Karin's 8th and 9th 14ers, and my 14th and 15th - she's catching up! Tuesday morning, after a bit of a lie-in, we packed out back to the car and came home. We had a great trip, and as a bonus, I was able to transfer the GPS track of our trip to a map for your viewing pleasure - the last two photos are our route on the traverse, and our overall trip, respectively. Enjoy the photos!