Fleetmack.com - Mt. Antero

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"You know what I hate? Indian givers...no, I take that back." --Emo Philips

Mt. Antero
06-16-2007
Summit Elevation - 14,269
Elevation Gain: 2400ft (parked at tree line)
Trip Distance: 6.5 miles
Total Round-Trip Climb Time (including 15 minutes on summit): 3:15
4WD Required: definitely
Exhaustion Factor (on scale of 1-10): 2
Scenery Factor (on scale of 1-10): 4

I left Westminster around 4:00am, stopped for gas in Golden, took I70 to C470 to the Hwy. 285 exit, and was on Hwy. 285 by 4:30am. Took 285 through South Park & Fairplay, to where the T-intersection forces you to turn south on 285. Take this to County Road 162, which is about 5 miles south of the T-intersection. Take County Road 162 for 12.5 miles (the last 2.5 miles or so are dirt, but fine for any car). There is a small parking area on the side of the road where the Baldwin Jeep Road (aka, County Road 277) starts. Laetitia ('95 Accord LX) parked here for the day. I arrived at the lot just before 7:00am. Around 7:45am, astrobassman from 14ers.com arrived in his Pathfinder and we headed up the 4wd road, took us about 45 minutes to get to the top ... we picked up a hiker along the way and drove him to tree line. We started hiking right around 8:45am.

The trail (11,800ft) is basically just following the (snow-covered in areas) road. After a short while, astrobassman and I decided to cut straight up the mountain on some talus to save time. We were both on schedules as I needed to get back to Denver to meet up with the Tigges' and he was headed to meet people in Westcliffe around 2:00pm. We hauled ass up the relatively-easy-to-stay-on trail. It was fairly uneventful. There is a nice ridge on the back side of the road that you take for a short while. We hauled ass, passing everyone in site with the exception of the Oregon people who are climbing all 14ers in 55 days, and we arrived at the summit at exactly 10:30, giving us a summit time of 1:45. We stayed up top for a short while, had some beef jerky & Jack Daniels, talked to the couple on the summit (those from the above link), and headed on down. We made it back to the car precisely at 12:00, and the second the doors closed (literally) the rain started! It took us upwards of an hour to get down the jeep trail, back to Laetitia, where I headed back to Denver through the pouring rain in South Park.

It was uneventful, but it was fun climbing with astrobassman, was great climbing my 21st or 22nd 14er (depending on how you look at it), and felt wonderful to be atop a 14er again ... the first time in 2007 ... well, unless you count when Fabi and I biked up Evans last weekend :)

Check out my pictures of this climb here.