Tour De Edwards

Saturday, July 15th

I went back to try Mt. Edwards again today. The weather was as beautiful today as it was miserable last weekend. I made the decision not to run any of the uphill, just try to hike as fast as I could. The first 6 miles passed smoothly, and I made it to the Waldorf Mine (6.2 miles) in just under 1:35. I turned off the road and headed up the east slopes route. There was no trail to speak of, but luckily the grassy slopes were pretty easy to negotiate and I only had to do minimal bushwacking. There was a snow slope that blocked the direct route up the gully so I traversed north and bypassed it. I was making pretty good time and hit the saddle (13,500ft) in just under an hour since I turned off the road - but I was moving pretty slow at this point. The view of Torreys Peak was spectacular from this point. The Dead Dog Colouir still had a lot of snow in it, but getting up to the snow would be a mess - the runout of the colouir was all scree.

It took a few minutes to climb the ridge to the summit, and I was on top in 2:45. One of my goals was to not stop the entire way to the top, and I accomplished this, although I was moving very slowly the last few hundred feet. I spent a few minutes on the summit - the views were spectacular. I could clearly see Mt. Bierstadt, Mt. Spaulding, and Mt. Evans to the east, Greys, Torreys, and Kelso to the west, and Argentine Peak to the south. I also could see the road coming from Argentine Pass, and it looked like a good way to descend. There was no trail coming up the east slopes route, so I figured if I descended to Argentine Pass, then I could run on the 4x4 road back down to Waldorf Mine.

I spent about 10 minutes on the summit, then made my way down. It was reasonably steep, and I was pretty careful - trying to save a couple of minutes is no reason to risk twisting an ankle. At least not when you're by yourself at 13,500+ ft. I made it to the road and there were several 4x4s, ATVs, and Dirt Bikers at Argentine Pass. I started jogging down the road, although it was ALMOST too steep and too rocky for the speeds at which I like to run. It wasn't the greatest road, lots of rocks and even the smooth sections the road was extremely sloped so I always felt like I was leaning to one side or the other. The real problem was the steady stream of dirt bikes and ATVs.

I got back down to the Waldorf Mine is just over an hour from the summit. All in all I would recommend descending to Argentine Pass - it really does make a nice tour of Mt. Edwards, and since there is no trail on the east slopes route descending the road is probably much easier on one's knees. It was getting hot as I started back down the road to the car. 6.2 miles to go, and another of my goals was to jog the entire way back to the car. I wasn't successful with this one. I jogged for about 20 minutes, started to get a cramp in my side, walked for about 10 minutes, jogged another 15, the alternately walked and jogged (read: mostly walked) the rest of the way down. By the time all was said and done, it took me only 10 minutes less time coming down from Waldorf Mine than going up. ouch!

Total mileage: 17.5
Total elevation gain: 4300 ft.
Total time (w/o stop on the summit): ~ 5:10.

I'll update the exact times later.