Mount Harvard surprise

By Jerry Meunier

Even an astute mountain weather observer can be surprised in spite of knowledge and training. There’s a lesson to be learned here.

To illustrate, let me tell you about a hike I went on with Brad, a good friend of mine. Brad called me on a Saturday evening in August of 2001 to invite me on a climb of Mount Harvard the next day.

He picked me up at an ungodly hour the next morning so we could reach the trailhead between around six and seven in the morning. We arrived at the trailhead on time, got our gear together, and began our long hike to climb Mount Harvard.

The weather forecast I had seen from home indicated that some monsoon moisture could still be lingering in the Collegiate Peaks area. The chances for thunderstorms would be somewhat low because colder, drier air creeping down from the north was expected to push the monsoon moisture further south. We fully expected to be able to reach the summit well before noon, before the likelihood of thunderstorm formation would become too great.

After a couple hours of hiking up the long, wide canyon toward Mount Harvard, Brad and I took a break. It gave us a chance to savor the mostly sunny weather and take in our beautiful surroundings. We were about half way up the canyon and approaching tree line. We were surrounded by a grassy meadow dotted with clusters of trees. Horn Fork Creek flowed right down the middle of the canyon with Mount Harvard looming straight ahead to the north. A steep, narrow ridgeline came down the left side of the canyon from Harvard. The right side of the canyon produced a long, more massive 14,073-foot peak called Mount Columbia. A ridgeline connected the north side of Columbia to Harvard.

I studied the sky for signs of changing conditions, as I usually do. It started to cloud up a little early, but the weather did not appear to be developing rapidly. The clouds were still relatively far apart, though one small thunderstorm had formed in front of us. I noticed that clouds were moving down from the north rather than from the usual westerly or southwesterly direction. The small thunderstorm up ahead drifted eastward across the canyon to Mount Columbia, where the cloud spit out a few bolts of lightning and rumbles of thunder. Blue sky replaced the thunderhead as it moved east.

Common wisdom dictates that thunderstorms usually appear in the mountains around noon—the time when people should plan to be off the peak and below timberline. At the time we got into trouble, it was only 9 a.m., so we were well within the safe climbing window. However, the view of the approaching weather from the north was blocked by the massive presence of Mount Harvard and its connecting ridgelines. Now that the small thunderstorm had moved off toward the east and most of the sky was blue, Brad and I proceeded toward our objective.

About an hour later, we had climbed above 13,500 feet. The terrain was all rock at this point, and we were getting close to the final approach to the summit of Mount Harvard. I had been watching some white cloud tops that had appeared above the summit from the opposite side. The sky began to fill with more clouds around the summit and to the west along the steep ridge. The gray of their undersides showed that the clouds moving down from the north, pushing up the north slope of Harvard, were trying to cross the steep 14,420-foot massive rock summit up above us.

I looked over toward Mount Columbia—like a baseball pitcher would check first base to keep the runner on—to make sure that the previous storm was still on its eastward track. It was still east of that mountain and had intensified somewhat.

Then I looked up above us again to check on the weather above Harvard. That cloud had definitely developed into a threatening storm, but there was a chance that it would be forced to veer to the west because of the mass of the mountain and its steep, adjoining ridge on the west side. I’ve seen that happen in the mountains before.

It was decision time. Brad and I both hated the thought of being so close to the summit and being forced to turn back. We would feel cheated since we had climbed early enough in the day. It’s just that the weather might not do its part. It developed too early. I secretly thought to myself that we were too exposed and should have turned back already. I wanted to see what Brad would say first.

My adrenalin was on high alert. I knew that we might have to make a split-second decision to descend if the storm did not stay west of the ridge. “What do you think?” Brad asked.

After discussing my weather observations, Brad said, “Let’s have a snack while we’re waiting and see what happens.”

I knew from previous hiking experience with Brad that he would risk it for the chance to reach the summit. If he had wanted to turn back however, I would have done so because I was sure that I was more aware of our risk than he was. I stood ready to act if the situation worsened. I hoped I wouldn’t be sorry. More and more of the blue sky above filled in with clouds. As a few drops of rain fell on us, we hoped there was still a chance that the storm would stay west of the ridge, little more than a half mile away.

Only ten or fifteen minutes elapsed while we ate our food bars and watched the summit and the ridge above us. All of a sudden, the sky exploded right above us with thunder. I looked around directly behind me at Mount Columbia to the southeast. To my astonishment, the small thunderstorm that had moved off to the east had backed up, strengthened, and merged with the storm coming from the other side of Mount Harvard. Within minutes, they had consolidated right over our heads.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” I yelled. “Now.” 

Brad agreed. I looked up to the sky again to gauge the severity of our situation. The only good thing about our dilemma was that the lightning bolts were being directed toward the peaks around us. But, we were definitely exposed and susceptible to being struck by lightning.

It began to pour rain and hail. We started to head back down the wet, rocky terrain while thunder and lightning crashed less than a thousand feet above our heads.

“Let’s hide under here”, Brad yelled as we came to a large rock outcrop.

“No, Brad. That’s too dangerous,” I yelled over the sound of cracking thunder, without breaking my stride. “Come on. We’ve got to get down off these rocks.”

Brad sensed my self-confidence in taking charge and making that decision. He darted back onto the rocky trail and started running, too. As we ran down toward the safety of tree line, more than fifteen hundred feet in elevation below, I worried that one of us might slip on the trail’s wet rocks and boulders and get injured. That could have turned our day hike into a tragedy. But, once we descended a few hundred feet, we had more secure footing on a dirt trail. We were fortunate, this time, and we made it to safety.

I glanced back several times while running down the trail to see what the storm was doing. It was heading back over Mount Columbia to our east. The lower our elevation became and the further south we ran, the farther we were from the dangerous lightning. After reaching a safe elevation, we stopped to take a break, catch our breath and reflect on our experience.

The sky above and toward Mount Harvard cleared out again. Brad joked about going back to finish our climb. Well, he might have been serious and hoping for my agreement. I pointed out the white cloud top appearing again on the other side of Harvard, meaning that another wave of storms could be approaching. That killed any notion of going back up.

As we continued down the trail toward the trailhead we had a great view to the south of Mount Yale, another prominent fourteener, as a severe thunderstorm hammered it. We thought how fortunate we were that we hadn’t tried to summit that mountain instead.

Jerry Meunier is a trip leader with the Colorado Mountain Club. He specializes in high elevation wilderness area backpacking. He lives in Denver where he is writing a book on his experiences.