14,073ft.

Sawatch Range

28/58

It’s been over a year since I stood on top of Mount Columbia, but here are the things I remember about the trip as a whole:

Myself, my dog, my roommate and one of my best friends took one car, another good friend and his sister from out of town took a second. We met up at the grocery store in Buena Vista and booked it through the parking lot in the pouring rain. We walked through the grocery store aisles soaking, shivering and adventure-ready. We picked hot dogs and kraft macaroni for dinner and swung by the liquor store before arriving at our campsite.

It was a perfect campsite. We pitched our tents, cooked dinner and then the five of us plus my dog huddled in my two-person one-doored tent playing Go Fish with made up rules because none of us actually remembered all of the details. We laughed and drank beers and listened to the rain on the outside of the tent, knowing full well we were in for unpredictable weather the next day.

Sure enough, it was an overcast morning. One from our group woke up early to make sure we all got a decent breakfast and then we packed up and drove twenty minutes to the trailhead.

I squealed at the sign that pointed straight ahead and said “Wilderness” and we began in that direction. I had hiked this section of trail years before when I stood on top of Mount Harvard and it was familiar-ish, but it was mostly different. The weather was different and it was a different time of year and that had been in a different stage of life that felt a little bit less like me than I ever have felt.

I struggled on the hike up Mount Columbia overall, as I did on every late-summer hike, in full denial of my injury. But I pressed on, regardless. I pressed on through Tom Petty and the Dixie Chicks, and up the icky and unclear trail that was under construction.

I remember our shift bid for work happened that day and the three of us that worked together each got phone calls as we walked up that steep steep trail and eventually straight into a cloud.

It was probably around 13,500ft that we were enveloped. It was a seemingly safe cloud, no threat of storms in the forecast, no electricity predicted or noted, it wasn’t even raining; just condensation, limited visibility and wind.

At one point, visibility was so poor that I lost sight of my friends, but I followed the trail markers and their voices when I could hear them and soon I stumbled upon them sitting upon the most anti-climactic summit I have yet to encounter.

We only stayed long enough to snap a few photos and hike out, but I still remember that summit in a uniquely clear way. It’s kind of wild because seeing Mount Columbia from surrounding mountains since, I can imagine where I was standing and I can piece together what that view may have looked like, but it doesn’t matter much to me that we didn’t have a view.

Mount Columbia was a reminder that sometimes we work really, really hard for something and don’t have anything official to show for it. Sometimes the victory is simply knowing we did it. We were there, we went for it, we stood on top of a new mountain, we pressed on.

Sometimes the victory is hot dogs and easy mac and Go Fish without rules. Sometimes it’s squeezing in a final mountain before the school year starts, quality time with quality people, scream-singing Britney Spears on the hike down and reminiscing about it all at the local brewery afterwards.

Do I prefer a view? Yeah. But I’m learning that the nature of life – and, inherently, my hobbies – is that sometimes we don’t get a view, but the neat thing is it can still be one of our clearest memories. The neat thing is what we got to be a part of.