Mt Yale (14,196) by Brian Schultz Tuesday July 30, 2013
Roundtrip mileage: 9.8 miles from Denny Creek trailhead
Elevation gain: 4,300'
Start to finish: 9 hours 45 minutes
Participants: Dave Preister, Lisa Preister, Brian Schultz
I met up with Dave and Lisa Preister at the Collegiate Peaks campground yesterday afternoon. Dave is an attorney who helped me with a trespass issue in Colorado last year and his only request after refusing monetary payment was for me to take him and Lisa up Mt Yale this year. How could I say no, especially since he and his wife missed the summit on a prior attempt? I hadn't been up a fourteener in a long time and was looking forward to repeating Yale and spending some time with them.
Lisa cooked an outstanding dinner at the campground and we enjoyed catching up on travels and so much else before turning in. We got up early, drove the short distance to the Denny Creek trailhead, and began at 5:15 AM. Dave and Lisa are from Texas, fellow flatlanders like myself, and we wanted an early start to ensure the best chance of reaching the summit. It was cold with gusting winds, but skies were clear and sunny as we set a slow, steady pace up the trail. The trail has been reworked since I last climbed Yale in 1997 and it's quite nice. It's also considerably longer.
We were passed by many climbers as the morning progressed, including some of the teens whose picture I took yesterday on the twelver by Cottonwood Pass. No matter, we just slogged slowly up the trail and stopped for breaks periodically, and when we got closer to the saddle, we were passed once again by many on their descent. As the teens scurried by, I asked if they wanted their picture taken again. The same girl readily handed her iphone over, evidently pleased with yesterday's results.
Some of the descending groups had only gone as far as the saddle, turned back by the high winds or intimidated by the summit ridge. When we reached the saddle at 10:15, Lisa decided she'd had enough and would wait for us there. We talked to a young couple from Houston, Texas who decided to stop there as well, worried about being blown off the summit ridge by the winds. Dave and I dropped below the north side of the ridge and found the winds to be nonexistent on the traverse. The climbing was a bit harder but worth it as we regained the ridge just below the summit.
We topped out at 10:45 and were the only ones up there until a young woman arrived from the east ridge. Carlyn, from Breckenridge, had already climbed a twelver on the way up and would be climbing thirteener "Mascot Peak" on her return. She's a rafting guide and talked of taking a trip to Panama and working in the off season down there.
Dave and I didn't stay long. Many others were still ascending the ridge as we descended back to the saddle. We reached the saddle at 11:20 and met up with Lisa for the trek out. We took a long lunch break at 12:25 and by the time we restarted, the winds had died down. We passed by hikers still heading up the trail as we neared the trailhead, and finally pulled into the parking lot at 3:00. This was a very enjoyable day on Mt Yale with Dave and Lisa and I truly didn't mind the more than two dozen others on the trail today. It must get crazy on the weekends though, considering this was a midweek day.
I took Dave and Lisa out to dinner that evening in Buena Vista and afterward drove back up the Cottonwood Pass road to Cottonwood Lake. I had a big day lined up for tomorrow and wanted to find a place to camp and get settled in before it got dark.
