Acclimating Day

Date to Climb: June 11, 2009

Event: Mountain Hike

Range: Indian Peaks

Route: Mount Audubon, East Slopes

Elevation: 13,223

Round-Trip Mileage: 7.8 (at least, we probably will not be able to drive to the trailhead)

Pre-Acclimating Day Comments

Weather permitting we intend to get up early and do the East Slopes route on Audubon. The altitude is over 13,200 feet! Hopefully, I will be able to breathe at that altitude. There should be snow giving Jake a place to play. He loves snow.

By walking slow and steady we hope to adjust to the atmosphere. We did this a few years back and it was almost the perfect acclimating hike. It will be fun to do it again.

Post-Acclimating Day Comments

We really wanted to climb Audubon today, but because of all the lingering snow, we decided to head to Leadville and possibly climb Mount Sherman instead.

Up by five we finished the last minute details to leave Mark's by 6:15 as planned. Mark had helped us quite a bit by updating us on conditions and allowing us to store items we decided not to carry with us. Mark is a great friend it was good to see him.

Traveling west on Interstate 70 we saw the mountains being hammered by a snow storm. At Loveland there were people riding snow mobiles! At Eisenhower tunnel snow was steadily falling.

The weather never improved on the rest of the drive to Leadville. Driving up to Iowa Gulch trailhead the weather seemed stable. Read the account of Sherman.

Returning to Leadville we bought a big bowl of hot mac and cheese from Safeway and sat in the car and went ’yum.’ On to camp we found a site near Turquoise Lake in a National Forest Campground. We have camped there many times all with good memories. We discussed our options for the weekend. We really hope the weather improves. We cannot do another day like Sherman.