Hiking the Harvard-Columbia Traverse (It’s Actually Not That Bad)
August 31, 2024
Distance 16.82 mi
Elevation Gain 5,879 ft
Moving Time 8:05:21
Elapsed Time 12:24:25
Pace 28:51/mi
Steps 41,632
I had made a Tik Tok video this summer about solo hiking in the dark- and how it can be a little spooky. So far all but one of my 14’er hikes have begun before the sun is up, and probably half of them have been solo. I enjoy hiking by myself because I don’t have to worry about keeping up with someone faster than me, nor waiting on someone slower than me. But, sometimes a hike can be a little dicey and it’s good to have a hiking partner.
The Harvard-Columbia traverse is one of those hikes that people groan about on hiking forums and where SAR rescues are plenty. I was certainly a little spooked by the reviews on it, so I knew that if I ever attempted it I would have a partner with me. Well, after making said Tik Tok, a handful of people reached out to me with the potential to go hiking together. Ella then messaged me on Instagram asking if I had done this traverse, and I hadn’t, so invited me along.
N. COTTONWOOD CREEK TRAILHEAD
We car-camped at the trailhead the night before we hiked. The trailhead parking was easy to access but parking itself was a bit odd. It was a circular parking lot, and people just kind of parked in amongst the trees where they could. There was also a sign for no camping at the trailhead, but a number of people, us included, were car camping. However, a lot of cars were there from people backpacking so the parking was already somewhat limited even though I got there around 6PM.
THE HIKE
We started hiking at 3:30AM. As we passed through the bottom of the basin we heard a low noise in the bushes. We were totally spooked, until we came across a man resting woh said it was a man and his dog and he had been barked at. Semi convinced we relaxed, but did it really sound like a dog? I was thinking it could have been a moose. We caught sunrise as we were towards the top of the basin but not quite the summit, so we took a nice break to enjoy the view of the pastel skies. We summited around 7:40AM after 6.92 miles and 4,466 ft of elevation gain, and it took us 4 hrs 6 minutes to summit. Included in that time was our break which was approximately 30 minutes.
It was clear blue skies up top with minimal wind, so we enjoyed ourselves up top for almost an hour. We began our traverse around 8:30AM, but not before meeting a solo hiker on Harvard’s summit. Chiara said she wanted to do the traverse but was solo- so she was going to hike back down and then up to Columbia. We invited her to join us if she wanted to catch up- we had rested for long enough and needed to get going! Well, about 15 minutes later she caught up to us and now we were three!
Ella was well prepared with route-finding directions, having saved the directional-images from 14ers.com. These proved super useful and definitely contributed to this hike being successful. The traverse does cause you to lose elevation gain, but we met a man coming from Columbia and he said he tried to stay high and almost got cliffed out. So, listen to the directions! The traverse was long and there was a handful of talus involved, and lots of small-large sized boulders. The view to your left as you hiked was incredible, in my opinion. It reminded me a lot of Iceland!
I think a lot of SAR rescues happen on the traverse because people hike it unprepared or in inclement weather. It’s certainly not a place you want to be with a storm rolling in! But, it isn’t dangerous technically, as you’re not climbing on narrow ledges with a cliff below you. It’s just a total slog!
Finally you reach a point where you’re ascending back up towards the ridge, and here we took a short but sweet break before the final push up to Columbia’s summit. The final push wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked and went by rather quickly, all said and done. We summited Columbia at 12:45PM, now 9 hours and 10 minutes, and 9.92 miles into the hike.
Descending down Columbia was honestly probably the worst of the hike. It is made up of steep switchbacks covered in scree, and I managed to fall not once but twice. One time scratching sunglasses in my hand, sigh, and the second time my hand landed on a prickly plant. As you’re entering treelike though, it was beautiful and the rest of the hike down was easy peasy from there. We reached the parking lot just at about 4PM, giving us a 12.5 hour day up in the mountains.