Thunderstorms rolling in over Mt. Princeton
Sweat starts to roll down the sides of my face. This despite the fact that we’ve only been hiking about a mile. The humidity makes the air feel thick and muggy, unusual for sunny and dry Colorado. The sky appears noticeably grayer, with the clouds thickening above our heads.
First a faint rumble, but no flash of lightning. The thunder sounds like it was pretty far away. Bryon and I converse, deciding for now, we will push on towards the lake, but if the thunder gets closer and louder, we will turn around.
Once we cross the log bridge, that louder clap of thunder strikes, along with the first droplets of rain. Ok, that’s it. We drop our packs, pull out our rain jackets, and quickly put our pack covers on our packs. We aren’t very far out from the trail head and in the thick of the forest, so despite the storm moving in, I don’t worry too much.
Within ten minutes, it is pouring rain, mixing with small pellets of hail. I can barely see down the trail, with the rain coming down so hard. The pellets of hail sting my face as they rain down and bounce off the brim of my hiking hat. We arrive back at the log bridge, and I ever so gingerly place my feet sideways, inching along to avoid slipping off logs that are now soaked with rain.
Picking up the pace, I start half running, half walking down the trail. Boom! Boom! The thunder seemed to be getting even louder, and the rain comes down in torrents. Water now flows down the trail, forming small streams of brown, as the water mixes with mud.
Up ahead, I see a couple ill-equipped for this monsoon, wearing nothing but tank tops. The man carts a small child on his back with just a t-shirt and a sun hat on her head. Her face belies her fear with her mouth quivering and her eyes wide. The temperature has dropped a good 10 degrees during the 20 minutes since the storm rolled in, and I am feeling chilled. I can only imagine how miserable she was.
As the parking lot nears, I think of all the hikers still behind us, many of them descending off of Mt. Yale, the 14,196-foot peak that this trail serves. Bryon and I had only planned a short hike to Hartenstein Lake, but most of the cars in the parking lot are from people hiking up Mt. Yale.
Only two years ago, a young woman, only married five days, lost her life when she was struck by lightning on Mt. Yale. I hope no one else will suffer a similar fate today. I think of how wracked with fear I would be right now, exposed above timberline during this violent storm.
The previous day, Bryon and I summited 14,197-foot Mt. Princeton. Not wanting to take a chance with the weather, we got up at 4:30 a.m. and drove to 10,800 feet before parking and beginning the 4-mile, 3400 foot climb to the top. Though the hike wasn’t long distance-wise, it made up for it in terms of the ruggedness, with mile upon mile of picking our way through rocks. Boulder-size rocks, smaller rocks, and finally scree on the final homestretch to the summit.
Picking our way through the rocks became incredibly time-consuming, taking us three full hours to go the four miles, with the last mile taking me over an hour to climb. The pitch became so steep, I could only keep going by going heel to toe, heel to toe. At 13,500 feet, my legs don’t feel as strong, and it’s all I can do to keep myself moving.
The views from the summit made it all worthwhile, with snow capped peaks all around us. We hunkered down for a few minutes, snacking on cheese and jerky while enjoying our alpine wonderland.
But within an hour of our descending, black clouds seemingly popped up out of nowhere. I felt grateful for our early start, knowing we would make it back to the car before the weather turned dangerous.
There’s an unspoken rule about summiting Fourteeners by noon to avoid bad weather, but honestly I think that gives many people a false sense of security. Spending a lot of time among the high peaks in my home state, each day can be different. I’ve driven by Longs Peak at 10 a.m. in the morning and seen lightning striking it.
After the last two days, I’ve decided I want nothing to do with trying to run down a Fourteener during a thunderstorm. That’s a particular form of excitement I can live without.
