Ryan and I only have a few more 14ers left that are within a 2 hour drive of home. Mt. Sherman is one of the easier 14ers, so we decided to finally summit it. Since one of us (ahem, Ryan) isn't a morning person, we decided to drive up and camp Saturday night, rather than waking up super early to drive to the trailhead. We also convinced our friends Liz and Ashley to join us!
The road up to Sherman goes through a lot of private land, but we were still able to find an amazing camping spot. And yes- we TENT camped!!
After sleeping in until 7AM, we hit the 4WD drive road that heads up Sherman. This time, all of our watches died, so we really aren't sure how high we started or how long the route was.
The first part of the trail went past some really interesting abandoned mines. It is amazing how much work it must have been to mine this high- and how much of the sites are just left here, in the middle of the mountain!
The views back down the valley were really pretty in the morning- we had just a bit of sunlight to enjoy
The trail itself was pretty easy for the first half. It got more rocky as we climbed higher, but the grade was really gradual the entire way.
Once you get to the top of the climb, the rest of the trail is mostly a ridgline until the summit. It doesn't feel as exposed as other ridge lines, but that may be because there was virtually no wind while we were climbing.
There was still a lot of snow on the trail- I couldn't believe that it hadn't melted- it's almost August!
We had a really nice, relaxed pace headed to the summit. For once, I almost felt like I could breath!
Just as we made it to the summit, the clouds really rolled in, making for a rather unremarkable summit shot. However- we did manage to get all the people AND the dogs into one frame, so I call that a win!
The trail was only slightly technical, but the grade was so gradual that it was perfect to run down. As we were flying by all of the other hikers, we overheard a comment from a group that was headed down while we were still 500feet from the summit 'They must've turned around…'. Heh. nope- we just fly like the wind down the side of the mountain!
Another perfect day in Colorado.
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