Decisions

The view from the Boulderfield was not encouraging. Normally at 7am in Colorado you would have crystal clear skies. I picked the wrong day to do this hike. This point is about 1.5 mile and 1500 vertical feet from the summit. Probably about an hour in good weather. Somewhere in that cloud is the keyhole which marks the beginning of the Class 3 scramble up to the summit. The clouds were not showing any signs of lifting. I sat around at the Boulderfield and talked with some of the other groups about whether to continue on. We all decided to turn around. I was hesitant to proceed on a technical snow climb in poor visibility with high winds. I didn't want to wait around to see if the clouds would lift as it could be hours of waiting for an uncertain outcome. I started hiking back down the trail passing a sea of people coming up. I probably passed 50-75 people and a few llamas on the way down. It was weird as I neared the trailhead to have people saying good morning to me as I was finishing a 12 mile hike at 11am.