Sunday, August 3, 2008

Mt. Meeker

On Sunday, I was invited to climb Mt. Meeker with Rich Christy, a fellow KDOT alum and my second cousin. It was great to have a hiking partner. I was very excited to finally take on the 2nd highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park at 13,911 feet. It is one of my favorite peaks with its horizontal stratification and pronounced glacier carvings.


We began the hike at 5am, which required a 2:45am wake-up call for me. The hike was pretty demanding, but the views were well worth the effort. We ascended the Loft route, a Class 3 climb.


After 4.5 hours of intense hiking, we reached our goal. The top of Mt. Meeker was very exposed. Both side of the ridge fell off rapidly. Luckily, the wind was not bad and we enjoyed lunch on top.

While sitting on Mt. Meeker, we could view people standing on top of Long's Peak. We debated ascending Long's Peak from the Loft, but decided against it since we didn't know the exact route...and we were pretty dang tired already.


The views looking down at Chasm Lake, roughly 1500 feet below were spectacular.


Looking at the north face of Mt. Meeker with the visible glacial carvings.

The awesomeness of the massive east face of Long's Peak from Chasm Lake just cannot be captured adequately by pictures.


As always, I took way too many pictures. I tried to consolidate them, but I still had plenty left over. Take a gander if you so desire.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great pictures - I need a hiking like that.