Day 28, Climbing Mt. Bancroft (13250 ft) March 21st , 2011

Steve had 1 day left in Colorado and wanted to get one more climb in.  Since Mays and his brother were both working he asked me to join him to climb Mt. Bancroft, near his brother’s house in Golden Colorado.  Bancroft sits at 13250ft (4038m) tall, shorter than Elbert, but still challenging, especially since we had just climbed Elbert.  We were dropped off at the trail head at 10AM and told our ride (Rose and Aya) to be back at 5PM.  Again we started off in snowshoes, across a frozen lake, up a snowfield (St. Mary’s Glacier, which is not really a glacier) that was a bit loaded for avalanche so we quickly passed this point, while remaining several hundred feet apart.  Once above the snowfield we were on a flat plain for about a mile before having to drop 300 ft into a lake basin that sat in front of the mountain.  The lake was beautiful but this decent also meant we would have to climb back out of the basin after the summit.  No matter we pressed on switching to crampons and choosing a relatively safe, but steep route up a snowfield.  We took turns leading since we were ankle deep in snow, but truthfully Steve the majority of the hard work.  Finally after 5 hrs we reached the ridge and then just 10 minutes later we were on the summit.  It was windy but not nearly as bad as on Elbert.  We took several photos and then quickly headed down.  We quickly moved down the mountain, glissading (sliding on your butt) when we could to save time, energy and have a laugh.  Climbing out of the basin proved to be more diffifult than we anticipated, since it had warmed up during the day the snow became weak, we kept breaking through and had to crawl and hop our way to the flat area.  Finally we arrived back at the parking lot at 5:30PM, a little later than planned but happy to be successful in another endeavour.

Info on Mt. Bancroft.

I realize now, more than ever that mountaineering is one of the most challenging sports I have ever taken on.  While climbing my heart was pounding away at 120-150 bpm, you only stop maybe every 1-2 hrs for a 5-10 minutes for water and food then you keep going.  Maintaining this level of effort for hours takes a real toll on your body all while at 10,000 ft or higher.  I figure I burn literally 4000-5000 calories on more for a day on the mountain, afterwards I can’t seem to eat enough.  Anyone out there that wants a new challenge out there get yourself to Colorado (even in the summer, although winter is much tougher) and try out a 14er, there are 57 of them in the state.

Photo Album:  FTF Day 28 - mt. Bancroft