For my sixth peak in six days, I bagged my first 14er of the trip. And I was fortunate to have my friend Mike Restivo of Mike Off the Map join me.

I hadn't met Mike before, but I've known him online for years via Facebook and Twitter. It was great to finally get a chance to hike together. When we were coordinating where we would meet and when, he suggested getting to the trailhead for a 2am start. I thought he was a little nuts. We settled for 3am.

He wasn't nuts. It was totally worth it.

First, the night sky was ablaze with the entire Milky Way galaxy above us. It was out of this world. Then the sunrise as we neared the summit was phenomenal. And when we reached the summit, we actually had it to ourselves for about 10 minutes.

On our way back down, we ran into the conga line of humanity snaking their way up the trail and I thanked Mike for suggesting the early AM start.

The trail itself was easy to follow, except for a few sections of snow that required some detective work to figure out where the trail resumed again. Basically, we kept going “up” and knew we couldn't go wrong.

A word about the road to the trailhead. I was driving a rental car, but this road was ROUGH. I saw some sedans at the trailhead, but I was sure glad I didn't have one. While 4WD wouldn't be necessary in dry conditions, a vehicle with high ground clearance is strongly recommended.