Intro

This report describes a dayhike of Quandary Peak using the East Ridge route, a class 1 difficulty, on June 29, 2020. This was my first 14er! This report is based on my own experience as a beginner hiker with limited mountain experience. It is most helpful for beginner hikers, people without experience with 14ers, and future me to remember this hike and measure my improvement with time.

Route - East Ridge, a class 1 route, just shy of 7 miles round trip with just over 3,000 ft of elevation gain

Trip Planning- Checked out info on 14ers.com, read the Quandary section in "The Colorado 14ers" book, memorized overall route just in case (just directions, major landmarks, turns). Talked to my buddy who has experience with the trail, 14ers in general, and gear. Brought my buddy with me. I live at 5,000 feet and spent the weekend up in the mountains before the hike on Monday to let my body adjust to the elevation a bit.

Logistical Considerations - Parking at both lots overflowed, so we parked streetside on McCullough Gulch Rd (not Blue Lakes Rd - residents don't like that). There were mountain goats and tiny goat kids. I saw a couple of goats being aggressive with dogs on the trail (not attacking, but stare downs and hoof stamping) so definitely something to consider if you're bringing a dog.

Gear Considerations- My buddy and I both brought 4L of water, extra layers, rain gear, first aid kit, hiking poles, hat, sunscreen, sunglasses. I wore boots, and two long sleeve t-shirts, and my buddy wore a short sleeve t-shirt, puffer vest and hiking shoes but a lot of folks were in sneakers and seemed fine. We didn't bring microspikes or crampons, and we didn't need them.

Narrative

I've been super excited to try a 14er! To prepare, I've been building up my hiking and running capability. I've been actively recovering from health issues and surgery half a year ago. A week before hiking Quandary, I hiked a similar but much lower elevation trail (Greyrock Trail - a little longer distance and not quite as much elevation gain, mostly class 1 and a bit of class 2). I also spent two days at higher elevation to adjust before the 14er (9k-10k feet).

I camped at Blue Lakes the night before, and had a great view of the East Ridge trail. My campsite wasn't far from the West Ridge/South (Cristo) Couloir Trailhead and the summit was visible from that trailhead so I went to have a look at the summit and what I could see of the East Ridge trail from there, too. The next morning we got started around 7 a.m. and had clear weather for the whole hike.

The trail up until the treeline reminded me a lot of the Appalachians, and was dirt with log steps and not many rocks. Before my surgery a few months ago, I had trouble breathing walking on flat land at 3,000 feet. Breathing felt the same hiking this 14er as it did before my surgery, which was an interesting and weirdly validating experience. I set the pace since I'm slower than my hiking partner. I focused on setting a pace I could maintain for most of the hike without needing lots of breaks - aka uncomfortably slow. It was brightly sunny and blustery once we got out of the treeline, and the trail stayed dirt for a while but slowly transitioned to a rockier and rockier trail. It was pretty windy and I was glad I had gloves and extras - I ended up passing mine off to a hiker with purple, swollen, scraped-up hands who seemed to need them more (my extras were bulky ski gloves - tossed them on at the summit and took them off halfway down again).

At some point, it became mostly rocky with some rock steps built into the trail in some spots. Some of them were small or regular steps up, but some were knee height or a bit higher for me. My hiking buddy could see the trail clearly but it was harder for me to tell which way to go. He pointed out that the rock mounds (cairns) along the trail help mark where the trail is. Around where we joined the main ridge, it was flatter and dirt/rock for a bit, but then it got steeper and mostly rock again. At this point, the rock was looser. Shortly before the summit was a difficult section, rocky and steep, where I was just trying to keep putting my feet in front of each other and keep going - slowly but surely.

I could see what I thought looked like the summit, but other hikers coming down said it was a false summit (the snowy bit in the picture below). You could kind of see the summit earlier, but at the point that they mentioned it the summit wasn't visible. There was a snowfield around the false summit so we were walking on loose rock and snow. It seemed like more exposure than it actually was, and the loose rock made me nervous. I was a bit scared going through this part on the way up. It was fine though and easier to get past than the previous rocky area.

After the snowfield, it was pretty flat again up to the summit. We summited just before noon. The summit was phenomenal!

The clothes I wore were well suited for the hike - winter tights + shorts, and two long sleeve athletic shirts (tossed the second one on on the way up) plus my old issued boots and some gloves (just light running gloves were fine on the way up, but ended up with my bulky backups on the way down which were also fine).

On the way down, one of my knees got aggravated so it was slow going still. It ended up taking another 5 hours to get down the mountain. I was erring on the side of babying my knee - I didn't want to risk injuring it to the point of not being able to continue on my own. I'd twisted it a bit the week before, but hadn't had any pain and thought it was fine until it was hurting on the way down Quandary.

The other folks we saw on the trail ranged from folks who didn't have a clue what they were getting into to ultra-marathoners who were literally running, even at the summit.

We saw mountain goats from around the treeline up til we were approaching the summit (not many, maybe 7-15 altogether), and at two different points a goat was stopped in the trail ahead staring down hikers with dogs. The first time, the goat maintained eye contact with the dog and stamped its hoof a couple of times but lost interest once the dog was lying down. My hiking partner had also moved to stand between the dog and goat, facing away from the goat, which seemed to help. The second time, the hikers and dog (different group from the first goat incident) stayed put and the goat kept walking away a bit and then staring them down, and did this several times until it lost interest and walked away.

There were also a bunch of awesome tiny alpine flowers hiding along the route - definitely saw Purple-fringe, Moss Campion, and Dwarf Clover. Saw a bunch of baby blueberry bushes in the trees too.

Trip Review

The trip went extremely well with the exception of the knee pain. The weather held out and we had blue skies and a handful of clouds, no storms and no lightning. If I do this hike again I'd wear a sunhat with a strap instead of a ballcap - the back of my neck got burned despite sunscreen and my hat almost blew away a few times. I'd also want more training in advance and an earlier start next time.

The goal for this trip was to attempt a 14er, hoping but not expecting to summit. I definitely achieved that goal! I even summited! I think the acclimatization and practice hikes went a long way toward achieving this, as well as having a water bladder to make water more easily accessible.

I'm extremely pleased with this trip. I feel accomplished and I gained back confidence in myself that I lost with the health issues I had over the past couple of years. I definitely plan on hiking more 14ers in the future and building up to harder hikes, gaining more skill and experience.