Mount Columbia

Beautiful trail. The round trip is almost 13 miles. First three miles - easy, then get rocky after 11000ft and last 1,5 miles gets pretty steep which involves a lot of scrambling. On the way down it's even harder, cause it gets slippery, so I would suggest bringing hiking poles. A lot of bugs in the afternoon, like a loooot, but it's their home so whatever lol hiked today and it was pretty busy till the trail splits to Harvard and Columbia, I feel like most people hike Harvard first and then climb the ridge on the way to Columbia. Seen people camping in the tents beyond the tree line. Its a long hike, and it's very sunny, so bring sunscreen. Few snow patches, but it's mostly summer there :) few mud spots and I saw people falling there. The trail is well marked and it's hard to get lost

Can never get enough of the Sawatch views, especially in Winter. Took the SouthEast ridge to the summit, which is a super long slog with snowshoes up to treeline. 5500+ feet of elevation gain, most of which is windswept, so only for very experienced hikers in the winter. Also, you can't drive to the trailhead in winter, we parked about 0.7 miles away. Nonetheless, the views from the top were of course amazing. Would highly recommend this as a winter 14er experience, as from the top you can see many iconic 14ers surrounding it.

Mount Columbia is difficult hike especially if you want to hike Harvard as well. It's about 14 miles and many switchback trails to get there. Unfortunately when I went it was very high winds and cloudy so couldn't take any real photos. Was an amazing challenge and glad I did it.

Mount Columbia was an enormous surprise to me as it ended up being one of my favorite 14ers I have ever hiked! The views at the top are absolutely stunning and the rugged rock adds to the amazing layers you experience up there. We started from the north cottonwood creek trailhead and the hike was rather demanding at 12.5 miles and 4600 feet of elevation gain. The thunderstorms moved in quick in the afternoon so we were very happy we summited early and got out of there before they consumed the area. The scree and lose rock was very treacherous at times over the steep grade on the way down so I highly recommend hiking poles for more stability. I honestly had given up on 14ers a few years ago but I am so glad we did this one. Absolutely breathtaking and I would love to do this trail again in the future!

The West slope is a steep climb to the summit. Not a bad 14er to climb. We continued on to Mt. Harvard via the traverse...this was very difficult and should only be attempted by experienced and well-prepared hikers. There is no trail and it's a long, hard slog with a lot of route finding. The climb back up to Harvard's summit to regain the standard route requires class 2-3 scrambling with moderate exposure...it is hard and long.