> Wednesday, September 16
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> After about 8 miles of hiking, we came up to the trailhead for Mt. Elbert. At 14,433ft, it is the tallest peak in Colorado and second highest mountain in the lower 48. We hadn't discussed going up it as a side trip before. But decided to go for it. There was a north and south trail to the summit, so it only added about 5 miles and 4000ft of climbing to the day, so we figured it was worth it. Heather had never climbed a 14er before.
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> The trail was steep. Very steep. There was also a good amount of people on it.
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> It seemed like the trail went on forever. It was super windy, I was almost getting blown over at times. There were a number of false summits on the way up. So we could never really see the top until we were on the actual summit.
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> We finally made it, we hid in one of the rock shelters to get out of the freezing wind.
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> The trail down the other side was also just as steep. Our knees and quads were killing us by the time we made it down to Twin Lakes at the end of the day.
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> The aspens are all changing colors now and it is really beautiful. Patches of hillsides are all yellow. We walked through a few.
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> There isn't much in Twin Lakes besides a General Store. So we decided to hitch a ride to Leadville, about 20 miles down the highway. Leadville is much bigger and has more restaurants.
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