Mount Columbia
A quick note of caution: a route is NOT a trail. A route is a suggested path and should be accompanied with someone skilled at reading topographic maps and navigating by GPS. Luckily, my hiking partner is this person, but if you don't have these skills available, you might want to stick to the more traditional trails. Routes often become trails over time, but while they are routes, you need to be able to navigate your way off the mountain.
We started out the next morning after a night of car camping. We packed up and started on the Harvard Lakes trail. We hiked this trail about a half mile to the crest of the southeast ridge. When the trail swings North (away from the ridge), we left the trail and continued NorthWest up the Ridge. This was a critical leap of faith and it was tempting to stay on the trail, but we wouldn't have climbed Mt. Columbia if we hadn't taken this route. Once you are off the trail, it climbes about 2 miles to the first major saddle at 12,600. As long as you stay on the ridge, you have a wonderful view (both in front and when you turn around) and it is a comfortable route to climb. There are several big lumps that you can hike over or around and we chose around in most cases. You can see the ridge we crossed in the picture just below the rocks in the foreground.
As you cross the last big lump, you can see Columbia peak in front of you. It looks like a knobby hill. This last wide basin is filled with alpine flowers, so take care not to crush them. It's hard, but worth it, and the peak is right in your view (finally!), so take heart. I've included a picture of this basin here.
What is always impressive to me when you summit the peak is that all you can see all around you are more peaks. Take a look at the view from Mt. Columbia.
After about 20 minutes to catch our breath, take pictures, re-hydrate and re-fuel, we reversed our course over the boulders, through the wide basin and then we decided to take the scree route as our descent route instead of traversing the ridge as we did on the ascent. We should have taken the longer route as a return. The scree scramble
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