Looking for miserably cold camping spot in late October

[Swerner]

I just finished up all the 14ers and I'm climbing Aconcagua in late Nov/early Dec. I've got my hands on almost all the gear I need for Aconcagua, but I want to get a trial run of camping at high elevation, carrying the full pack for a few miles, ideally something likely to be miserably cold/windy as well. Any good recommendations for a place like that (near-ish to Denver)? I'm ruling out sleeping on summits unless there's one with flat enough ground to actually sleep decently on.

I'm thinking backpacking up the road to Kite Lake might fit the bill for all of those criteria, but I'm not sure if that's allowed or not.

[Jon Frohlich]

Pennsylvania Mountain? Big, flat, and exposed. Sounds miserable but would fit your criteria.

[mtree]

Mt Sherman. Meets all the criteria. You could even choose the saddle between Sherman and Sheridan or the saddle between Sherman and Gemini or anywhere along the ridge. Or lower if you don't feel like hiking that high with a pack. Plenty of miserable options.

[SkaredShtles]

The bowl below Grays & Torreys - assuming the road hasn't been snowed in yet.

[Scott P]

I agree with Shermanand and people do sleep near the summit at times for the same purpose

[askwjs]

Wouldn't worry so much about sleeping at altitude as load carrying up steep, loose slopes in your mountaineering boots, in my opinion. Carrying 50+ lbs up something like Quandary multiple times would be more beneficial for success as you will acclimatizate naturally on Aconcagua throughout the expedition. Good luck

[HikesInGeologicTime]

Congrats on your finish!

Mt. Flora off Berthoud Pass is miserably cold and windy a lot of the time. Maybe a little less mileage and vert than Sherman (at least, from Sherman's uppermost TH) but closer to Denver.

If you've ever wanted to camp in Longs' Boulderfield anyway, late October's probably a relatively easy time to score a permit, and that area's also more likely than not to help you put your gear through its paces.

[Eli Boardman]

Colorado Mines Peak just above Berthoud Pass has large flat areas at the summit, and it's easily accessible (short drive and short hike). Bonus: you can use the weather station on the summit to quantify just how extreme it really is!

https://weathercams.faa.gov/map/-106.53 ... ls/weather
(Looks like it's offline right now.)

We tried to spend the night up there in a blizzard in prep for Aconcagua, but it ended up being so windy that the tent poles snapped while we were setting up a Mountain Hardware Trango. That's the nice thing about it being so close to the car, as we just walked out. The weather station on the summit was showing wind speeds well above 80 mph...far more extreme than any weather we experienced on Aconcagua haha.

[Swerner]

Thanks for all the recommendations everyone! I think we may take a look at the weather as we get closer and decide then. Seems like there's plenty of places around that will get us the bone-chilling misery we seek

Wouldn't worry so much about sleeping at altitude as load carrying up steep, loose slopes in your mountaineering boots, in my opinion. Carrying 50+ lbs up something like Quandary multiple times would be more beneficial for success as you will acclimatizate naturally on Aconcagua throughout the expedition. Good luck

I'm less worried about the fitness aspect than the gear aspect. I did an 8 day trek in Peru last year sleeping up to 14,900 and climbing up to 16,900 with ~55lbs in the pack, and I'm in the middle of marathon training, so I'm not as worried about that part as I am about "can my feet handle wearing these boots, does this cold gear keep me warm enough, does my sleeping setup give enough comfort to actually sleep on, is my layering system sufficient, etc". I've winter camped in full snow before but never without a sled so that's another thing to experiment with. The plan on the peak is to do the step-wise strategy of hiking high, sleeping low and stashing gear higher up, so acclimitization should happen from that fairly well.