Dan and Courtney on the Summit of Mt. Princeton

Courtney and I are vacationing in Colorado, and yesterday we climbed Mt. Princeton (14,197′), a 14er in the Sawatch Range.  We hiked ~4200′ of vertical, which took us about 8 hours.  We underestimated the effect of the altitude, even though we have hiked at higher altitudes before.  Headaches and lots of huffing and puffing – coming from sea level a few days earlier did not help.  We both agreed it was one of the toughest hikes we’ve done.  We took a well-deserved soak in the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs afterward.

The most difficult part was the drive up the Mt. Princeton Road.  We took on the Mt Princeton Road in a 2WD Ford Focus and survived, but I wouldn‘t try it again. We had to go extremely slowly to avoid bottoming out on the many large rollers. We scraped several times and spun our tires, but escaped without getting stuck. The road is very narrow and there is no room to pass or turn around – 4WD vehicles were catching up to us and adding to the stress. We parked at a pullout below the radio towers not knowing what was ahead. The whole thing was funny in retrospect once we were safely back at the bottom.  We wished we had taken some pictures or a video, but it was too stressful at the time.

The panoramic view from the top of Mt. Princeton was spectacular!