Saturday morning I make my next decision.  Today it will be Mt. Yale.  The mountains I chose are challenging and have an accessible road to the trailhead.  Colorado does not have consistently good roadways to access the many beautiful mountains.  Very rugged, four wheel drive necessary unpaved roads, are not uncommon.  There is also a lack of good park service contact and information stations as you would find in New Hampshire.  Therefore, selecting your daily choice for the 14er hike demands some care.  Besides travel concerns, you can obviously get lost; but that is another story.

As with other hikes, I again have made some hiking friends in the parking lot.  Colorado people are friendly.  It is also easy to make friends on the trails as I have done daily.

Yale is a good 14er.  You climb about 4500 feet of vertical and have a round trip of under ten miles.  You also get a quite challenging final accent up the rock arrangement near the summit.  Hiking starts with a well equipped trailhead parking lot and lavatory.  The trail moves gradually through a rather picturesque forest for a couple miles the same way that many of the other trails begin.  Then it quickly gets steep - very steep.  Hiking a blue trail is challenging.  Hiking a black trail out west requires frequent stops.  The trail at Yale moved from black to double black and beyond.  Now try that at 12,000 or 13,000 feet.  Fortunately, many of the steeps had a switchback cut to make life manageable.  But as I move above the tree line, most of the trail is straight.

This is a beautiful mountain and state.  God is definitely an artist.  Yale is part of the Collegiate Peaks area, so you can view 13K and 14K mountains in 360 degrees.

The final summit was a real challenge but man was it fun.  The top 800 feet of vertical is a mountain of large granite boulders.  There is a trail, but staying on it takes concentration.  But then again, if you are like me, you get off trail to do as much large rock scrambling as possible (as if the trail was not enough).  The ridge got fairly narrow, so constant care was needed to keep from falling very far.  But wow was it cool.

Again above the tree line a group of us formed a small climbing pack and so there were a few pictures at the summit.  But I am tired.  I have now done three 14ers in five days.  Tomorrow I will take the day off and become a normal tourist.

You have got to try this mountain some day.

Mt. Yale has become my annual favorite and a ritual among the Colorado 14ers.  My climbing times have come down dramatically.  Summiting under 2:45 is an exhilarating accomplishment for anyone living at sea-level and has asthma.

Please be safe and avoid summit fever.  I do my homework and climb as the weather permits.  If you need to start extremely early, then do it, or be safe and go home.  I have been on the mountain when climbers did not heed good counsel and died.  Be wise.