Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Spearhead!! (as cool as it sounds)


There are so many peaks in Colorado, and I would love to bag them all. But there are just so many hours in a day, and so many days in a week, and very few of them do I have off. So until I find a way to make a living while summitting mountains, I have to be picky. While browsing through a list of peaks in Colorado, one name particularly jumped out at me. It wasn't the tallest, heck, it wasn't even a 14'er, of which I said I wouldn't even waste my time on anything under 14,000', but there was just something about this peak that caught my attention. It was called "The Spearhead". My curiosity got the best of me, and I looked into it's stats. Standing at 12,575' above sea level, it's height isn't it's most impressive feature. But the fact that it's shaped like the head of a spear, and it's perched in the middle of this massive glacial couloir, surrounded by 4 massive peaks, 3 being over 13,500' and the fourth a whopping 14,200', it could have easily been called "The Throne".







And one would certainly feel like a king to reach it's summit. It's northeast face is a giant, flat faced triangle with a vertical height of 900+ feet. The spine of rock that connects it to the surrounding wall of mountains is made up of house-sized boulders, that look like giants are about to have a game of Jenga. And the summit is nothing more than a precariously stacked 20-foot high pile of rocks, like a dainty angel on top of a Christmas tree.

The total hike is 13 miles roundtrip, from the Bear Lake trailhead, and sifts through one of the most beautiful glacial valleys I have ever seen.

By far one of the most beautiful places I have yet visited. Top 3 coolest hikes I have ever done. And now if I could just figure out how to make a living doing what I love.