Pingree Park - 5 Summits hike

Just completed a very long, long day of constant hiking with members of the expedition and high school cross country runners.  The route is aptly named the 5 summits and forms a route that encircles the Pingree Park area, all while staying mostly above treeline.  The peaks it touches in order are:  Signal Mountain, Stormy Peak, Hagues Peak, Fall Mountain, and finally Commanche Peak.  The route length runs just under 30 miles in length and took me exactly 17 hours to finish (began at 0200 hrs and finished at Pat’s cabin at 1900 hrs).

Was very impressed with my stamina on this trip.  Until the descent from Commanche everyone kept mostly together; the young runners really wanted to smoke through the whole thing but were held back until the end.  I went light and fast wearing my low cut Scarpa hikers, zip off pants, houdini windshirt, and food for the day.  We carried water too, but only enough to reach fill up points along the way.

The day was fantastic.  Sunrise on the summit of Signal Mountain was beautiful, and at that point the wind was barely there.  A drop in elevation and then back up to Stormy Peaks pass and eventually summit #2.  From here it was a fairly constant traverse over to a snowfield leading up to Hagues; this was probably my low point in the day as I was feeling a little peaked.  Eventually the food fixed that and I was going strong again.  There was a strong inversion and the moisture formed clouds across the front range below us.  They slowly creeped westward until they clashed against the divide which we were on.  As we summitted Hagues we were engulfed in clouds, but they weren’t stormy, just fluffy.  As we backtracked and began a descent to Mummy Pass everything cleared up and it became warm.  We all had fun glissading down a snowfield and soon it was time for the last major uphill ascent to Fall mountain.  At this second to last summit, I changed into my last pair of clean and dry socks.  Wow, what a difference!  It was like having new feet.  I raced a few guys during our last leg over to Commanche and enjoyed the waning afternoon sun as the rest of the team finally arrived.  The final descent offered one more snow glissade and then a long death march through the trees.  The food and beer awaiting us at Pat’s cabin were the best I’ve tasted.

The preceeding is an excerpt from my written journal