Mount Audubon

Mount Audubon and Thunderstorms

With the girlfriend out of town riding in the 3-day courage classic I had the weekend free to head out with the guys on a hike. Originally we were thinking about hitting up Taylor Peak via the Andrew's Glacier but quickly realized that none of us were up for carrying our cramp-on's or ice axes so we looked south to the relatively easy Mount Audubon.

Everyone met at my house at 6am an we were at the trailhead at 7am ready for a pretty tame 8 mile hike. About a mile into the hike we realized we started at the wrong trailhead and we were just going to Mitchell Lake. Cool, but would not suffice for our goal of summiting a 13eener. So we turned around and headed back to the parking lot to hop on the right trail.

Now on the right trail we walked though about 1.5 miles of forested land before getting above tree line and into true alpine territory. The trail was very rocky with great views of Long's Peak, Pawnee Peak, Mount Evans and many more. We climbed over some talus and summited around 11:15. The view was nothing short of amazing. Almost everything was below us, we were at the top of the world! Well on top except for those dark clouds starting to form over our heads...

Realizing a storm was quickly forming we headed back down from the summit knowing we have about an hour and a half of hiking above treeline. We made it about half an hour when it started to sprinkle on us, 15 minutes later we heard thunder and the rain really started to come down. We put our rain gear on and high-tailed it down to the trees with thunder bolts cracking to our south. We made it without incident but some of the other people on the mountain were woefully equipped. Some of our fellow hikers only had t-shirts and fanny packs and no rain gear or proper shoes. They looked miserable.

Once below treeline the rain subsided and we saw people headed up the mountain, we warned them of the lightening danger but they ignored us. Hopefully their stupidity didn't cause harm, would hate for anyone to be struck by lightning.

The rest of the hike back was uneventful and we made it back to the car and back to Boulder without incident. It was an awesome first summit hike for me. I am glad I got to go with 2 experienced friends of mine.