Columbia, Harvard

Aug. 8, 2001 (Happy 46'th Birthday). As training for Nolan's 14 next week, Ginny LaForme, John Robinson, and I climbed Columbia (14,073 ft) and Harvard (14,420 ft). We went in the reverse direction in order to learn the steep, tricky descent from Columbia's south ridge. From there we traversed Frenchman's Creek basin to the east, up Harvard, and returned to the South Cottonwood trailhead via. the Horn Fork trail in a 7 hour hike.

John and Ginny climb Columbia's steep south ridge. There is no trail.

Yale from Columbia, looking south. Two avalanche chutes are visible east of the summit. In Nolan's 14, we climb the one on the right.

Summit of Columbia.

Rabbit Ridge between Columbia (left) and Harvard (right). We avoid the class 5.7 ridge by descending to 12,600 ft. and staying on grassy slopes.

Pinnacle on the south ridge of Harvard. If you were going north to south in Nolan's 14, you would go around to the right, then turn left off the ridge onto the grassy slopes and descend. The pinnacle is not visible from the summit.

But since this was just a training hike, we climbed over the pinnacle just for fun.

The summit of Harvard, looking north toward Belford (left) and Oxford (right). In Nolan's 14, we descend the Belford-Oxford saddle to treeline (dark green at 11,800 ft.), then 1/2 mi. west (left) on trail to the avalanche chute (light patch below Belford). Then we cross the Pine Creek trail and stream, bushwack to treeline, then up the northwest ridge (below).