The weekend prior to this Columbia report I climbed Mount Harvard's east slopes/ridge via Frenchman Creek. Without a storm in between I figured why not use my own trench up Frenchman Creek and get Columbia while it's still good? That's thinking smart.

Whiley and I left the cars at the winter closure around 7:20am. It was a little windy down low, even in the trees, which was foreshadowing of the winds to come. As we snowshoed up the road, because of course we'd be on a road, where else could a hike possibly start but on a road?, Columbia stood far in the distance.

We hiked along for about an hour and 40 minutes before reaching the upper/4WD trailhead, and about two hours and 20 minutes before reaching the Frenchman Creek Trail/Colorado Trail junction. This was all familiar to us from the week prior and our trench was still in good shape.

Not even 100 yards past the junction we happened upon another junction, which we were looking for carefully but didn't have to be because it was so obvious. The prior week a couple of skiers had attempted Columbia's east ridge and had left us a nice skin track to follow. Thanks guys!

We had somewhere between 600 and 800 feet to gain before treeline, which only took us 35 or so minutes, even with snowshoes on. The track weaved like a drunk through the forest but was supportive like one of those friendly drunks who listens quietly to your woes and nods somberly (but not soberly, of course) and gives slurred words of encouragement, and life was good.

We stopped at treeline to put on an extra layer plus shells, because the wind was absolutely howling through the gap in the trees. Obviously above wouldn't be any better. Our snowshoes stayed on as we ascended the first and second rolling slopes, still largely covered in snow, and then stopped to take off our snowshoes when the snow mostly ran out. There was still some on lee slopes but the flats were almost entirely dry and snowshoes would just be excessively tedious from here onward.

The east ridge of Columbia isn't much of a ridge. It's certainly quite long, which I suppose is ridge-like, but it's also incredibly wide, mostly unremarkable tundra, and generally is a gentle gradient the entire way. Boring, in other words. It makes for an easy if unexciting hike, which was fine by us because for some reason above treeline we were absolutely dragging. Perhaps it was the winds, which were high enough to necessitate walking and standing of a deliberately upright manner. Perhaps we were just tired. Perhaps the ridge somehow grew longer as we hiked. Who knows, except to say that where we felt fast before we now felt slow.

A couple of rollers later we neared the first snowy, bouldery bump. One of only two visually exciting areas on the ridge, it actually was a bisection of the ridge with two rocky protrusions.

The rocky point on the left was literally the most rugged thing on the entire ridge, and maybe we should have scrambled over the top of it to add what would probably be the only spice of our day, but alas, we did not.

Ahead of us the ridge continued to undulate in waves. Those words are synonymous, identical, comparable, and one and the same.

False summits abound, but only if one isn't paying attention. The Harvard-Columbia connecting ridge in the distance prevented our expectations of the next bump being the summit, or the next, ad nauseam. By far the largest false summit of the day fell smack dab in the middle of our ridge; from Point 13,492 (which is marked on maps as such) Point 13,734 (which isn't marked on maps, for some reason) stood discouragingly in the way.

While it only took a couple of minutes to drop to the saddle it took what felt like forever to trudge to the top of Point 13,734. The headwind was strong and cold and both Whiley and I were feeling tired despite the good start to the day. It's funny how cold winds just sap your strength. While the ridge certainly wasn't hard it was tiring and I began to lag behind, gradual slope or not.

We ground up the hill , and from Point 13,734 Columbia itself finally stood in front of us, our first view of the actual summit.

Though the summit was still a ways off it was a morale boost to have it in view at last. There was a short drop and we anticipated about 500 vertical feet from that final saddle to the top. The tedious, rocky nature of Columbia - something I remembered well from my one other climb in conjunction with Harvard - increased as we began ascending the summit pitches.

The closer we got to the summit the deeper the snow became. Most of it was nicely hard packed and we happily kicked steps up it instead of wallowing.

The last 50 feet were steep but not steep enough to warrant getting the ice axe out. We just punched and kicked into the snow instead.

Then, it was over. We were on top of Mount Columbia, our second winter 14er in two weeks via Frenchman Creek. Our efforts the week prior had paid off!

Somehow the winds had died down completely on the summit. We took a break of about 15 minutes, lounging in the reprieve. We figured it'd be the only one we got all day where we weren't just getting hammered by the gale.

Like all things our rest came to an end. It was mostly downhill from here; there was still the matter of the two ridge bumps to go over, but their summit-side slopes were shorter than their ridge toe-side slopes. We went directly over both as that was easier than skirting their talus-laden slopes.

From the second, lower bump, the ridge stretched out in front of us, going on far longer than either of us would have liked.

By now massive lenticular clouds had formed over the Buffalo Peaks and extended for miles in all directions, including up. Stacks of the saucer shaped clouds towered over a great area and were simply a visual indication of what we'd experienced all day.

The winds had started nearly immediately after we left the summit and kept us company for our descent to our snowshoes and treeline, which took about an hour and a half.

Though it was still windy ambient temperatures had risen and the snow below treeline was soft. We sank a few inches into it even with snowshoes on, which was a little irritating. Still, we had no trouble following the now well beaten path back down into the drainage where the really solid trench was.

Whiley was faster than me here so she went ahead to the bridge where she waited to make sure I crossed it safely (the compacted snow on it was about eight inches wide and twice that height, so it was like crossing a high beam on snowshoes) and then went ahead again while I plodded behind.

We met at the cars about 15 minutes apart and drove to Leadville where Whiley convinced me to not get High Mountain Pies for once in my life. Instead we went to Casa Sanchez 2 (is there another one?). I'm pretty sure the burrito I ate in its entirety was three pounds. Sometimes I amaze even myself. We've had a good season so far and it was nice to be able to tag two peaks on separate weekends by taking advantage of our own work to do so. I'll have to return to Frenchman Creek in summer but in winter it's beautiful and tranquil and a fun way to experience two old friends in new and different ways.

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Whiley H.
Trailhead: Frenchman Creek winter closure
Total distance: 15.6 miles
Total elevation gain: 6,011 feet
Total time: 9:15:03
Peaks: One fourteener

• Mount Columbia, 14,073'

Splits: