7-12-13

Me: Did you know I went to Harvard? It was tough but I graduated. Above is the photo of me receiving my diploma. :-)

Mt. Harvard. 14,420 ft.

Mt. Harvard really was hard. This was day three so my legs were tired and the hike was long (7.5 hours) and steep. An altitude headache plus 2 hours of hiking in heavy rain, hail and cold didn't help.

Much of the route followed along a beautiful mountain stream.

Gorgeous approach to Mt. Harvard which is still far in the distance. We saw 12 marmots today! They seem to play around 13,000 to 14,000 ft.

This is where it got tougher. Rocks everywhere.

Nearing the summit with blue skies.

The last push for the top was a scrample over even larger boulders.

Made it and found a rock chair for lunch. We were the only two people at the summit.

When I looked down I found Billy Goat looking up at me and a marmot sitting on a rock.

Billy put on quite a show for us; climbing the rocks up towards us and right over the summit to the other side.

Pretty cool how he was in the middle of shedding his winter coat. 

And most amazing how he skipped, jumped and had no problem on these rocks when it was so difficult for us to climb in our treaded shoes. This really is a rare sighting but day two of being near one at 14,000 feet! 

Summit shots with the sign and time to head down. Clouds are rolling in (yikes)

Rich. His 42nd 14'er summit!

Rocky, steep descent.

Billy was leading the way for a while until he disappeared over the ledge on the right. Bye Billy! :-)

Yep, dark clouds ahead. We got down to tree line before the rain and hail hit but still had two hours of getting drenched before arriving at the car. Super happy we were able to summit this tough mountain. I guess it's true that it's hard at Harvard.