Mt Bierstadt - Wednesday after work

Ryan and I left Golden at 5 and drove up to Guanella Pass to try to watch sunset from the summit of Mt Bierstadt. I've done this a few times on Grays and Torreys, but this was the first sunset hike on Bierstadt. This fine September day boasted the gentlest weather I've experienced on a 14er; warm, calm, and awesome. Based on the stats of RT 7.7 mi, and 2700 ft gain, I hoped it was as runable as Audubon was on Monday. However the first mile is rather downhill such that 2500 ft is really only spread over 2 miles.  I found it was a little too inefficient to run much on the ascent.

Sun setting on the Sawtooth Ridge between Bierstadt and Evans

We made steady progress up while seeing only 3 others on the mountain (each heading down) and ended up still being about 15 minutes from the top during sunset over Square Top Mountain. Still a nice show though. Someone left a bag at the summit from WhichWich so we took our picture with it to claim a free lunch on Friday.

Sunset behind Square Top Mountain. Grays and Torreys are the 2 pyramids on the right side

90 minutes up and about an hour 20 down. We could have pushed much harder on the way down but no need to hurry today.