Hiking the collegiate loop with a Nolan’s 14 twist is absolutely the best way to enjoy this area. Most people, as far as I know, have not added this level of peak bagging into the Collegiate Loop. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. WHAT IS this hike?
Collegiate Loop Background
The collegiate loop is 160ish miles of beautiful trail. It runs through Colorado near the towns of Leadville, Salida, and Buena Vista. You can also summit a shit-ton of the 14,000 foot peaks (14ers) in the area! I decided to add in all the “easy-to-acccess” 14ers, making it a 300 mile trip, all-in-all.
The Collegiate Loop is a loop that leaves from Twin Lakes Colorado. It combines the “Collegiate East” route, one of the route options on the Colorado Trail, with the “Collegiate West” route, the standard hiking route for the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). The Collegiate West route is some of the best hiking I have done in my life. It is a truly scenic area, with absolutely stunning, high-alpine views. The weather is humbling, and the peaks even more so.
The Collegiate East route, on the other hand, is a little lack luster. The main characteristic of the Collegiate East route is that it presents a large variety of opportunities to summit 14,000 foot peaks. It also conveniently goes through the Mount Princeton Resort, which allows for a nice opportunity to resupply, rest, and eat “town” food. If you’re hiking the Colorado Trail or CDT, definitely take the Collegiate West route. If you’re hiking the Collegiate Loop — you’ll be doing both!
Hiking Plan and Maps
I have hiked in the Collegiate area many, many times. When I was on the Colorado Trail in 2014, I summitted several 14ers while trying to kill time, waiting for people to meet up with me on trail. When on the CDT, I was too busy crushing miles to consider summitting “out of the way” peaks. Having grown up in Colorado, I cut my hiking chops primarily around peak bagging — this was before I found my love of long-distance hiking. When on thru-hikes, it never fully sat right with me that my thru-hike plans took priority over any considerations for peak bagging. I decided I wanted to remedy this.
I created a trip map that was entirely based around peak bagging!
Below is my daily milage and the peaks I summited, where relevant. Other than the three, glorious days hiking between Salida and Buena Vista, I was summiting one or more 14ers daily. This was exhausting, and definitely a challenge. I would encourage spacing out a couple of the 14ers, especially in the first couple of days, with a little bit more of a gap (if possible). I left at 3:00 PM on Monday, July 1st, and finished by 1:00 PM on Saturday, July 13th.
My 12-day Trip Itinerary
- 1-Jul: Start at twin lakes ~ 15 miles
- 2-Jul: Summit Mt Harvard and Mt Columbia ~ 20 miles
- 3-Jul: Summit Mt Yale ~25 miles
- 4-Jul: Summit Mt Princeton. Resupply @ Mt Princeton Hot springs. ~24 miles
- 5-Jul: Summit Mt Antero ~23 miles
- 6-Jul: Summit Mt Shavano and Mt Tabguache. Resupply in Salida. ~20 miles
- 7-Jul to 9-Jul: [3 days] Hike to Buena Vista for resupply. ~61 miles
- 9-Jul: Camp at base of Mt Huron ~18 miles
- 10-Jul: Summit Mt Huron ~19 miles
- 11-Jul: Summit La Plata Peak and Missouri ~21 miles
- 12-Jul: Summit Mt Oxford, Mt Belford, and Mt. Elbert. ~32 miles
- 13-Jul: Summit Mt Massive and hike to Leadville Hatchery. ~19 miles
For the trip, I took the traditional Collegiate Loop, and added in all the “well-documented” routes to climb the 14ers in the area. These routes can be found, largely, on 14ers.com. The one exception is the initial ascent I did up Mt. Harvard which uses an old trail to the summit. This trail is not as frequently used as other trails. Other than that, most of the trail is pretty reliable in terms of use patterns.
The other major change I made, was that I didn’t “complete” the collegiate loop. This is due to the Interlaken fire that closed off around 10-15 miles of trail near Twin Lakes. As such, I started the hike at County Road 390, rather than at Twin Lakes (or the Leadville Hatchery).
Recommended Itinerary Changes
If trail is not closed in parts, I would encourage:
- starting at the Leadville Hatchery.
From there, you can summit Mt. Massive and then Mt. Elbert. You can divide this start over the first two days, before dropping down to Twin Lakes via the Colorado Trail. This slower start will allow you to better acclimate to the altitude, and will also facilitate a complete footpath for the full Collegiate Loop. Starting with Massive and Elbert and will make for a more graduated plunge into peak bagging!
Suggested Itinerary (Fourteen 14ers in 14 days)
- Day 1: Leadvill Hatchery, up to Mt Massive and Down
- Day 2: Base of Mt Massive to summit of Mt Elbert. Resupply in Twin Lakes
- Day 3: South of Twin lakes to base of Mt Harvard
- Day 4: Mt Harvard, Mt Columbia, camp at base of Mt. Yale.
- Day 5: Summit Mt. Yale. Hike to base of Mt. Princeton
- Day 6: Summit Mt Princeton. Hike to base of Mt Antero
- Day 7: Summit Mt. Antero, go to base of Mt Shavano
- Day 8: Summit Mt Shavano and Mt Tabaguache. Resupply in Salida.
- Day 9-Day 10: Hiking to Cottonwood Pass. Resupply in Buena Vista
- Day 11: Leave Buena Vista and Camp at base of Mt. Huron
- Day 12: Summit Mt. Huron. Camp at base of La Plata Peak
- Day 13: Summit La Plata Peak. Hike to Missouri Mountain. Summit Missouri (if weather permits)
- Day 14: Summit Mt. Oxford and Mt Belford. Hike into Twin Lakes.
My actual hiking track for all fourteen 14ers and the collegiate loop route resulted in a little under 300 miles of hiking and approximately 82,000 feet of ascent (according to my Garmin watch). This is considerable! It’s also pretty hard days if you’re doing it in only 12 days! To read more about how I felt on the trip, and how it went, I have documented this in detail in a trip report on the Ultralight subreddit. In general, I loved the trip! My actual track for the route, as recorded on my Garmin, can be found here
Nolan’s 14?
I encourage reading more about “the Nolan’s 14” if you’re curious. But, what you need to know: someone was challenged to see how many 14ers could be fit into an approximately 100 mile route. After some time, Jim Nolan came up with 14 peaks in the Collegiate and Sawatch ranges that could be readily connected through a reasonable north-to-south traverse. Thus, Nolan’s 14 was born!
The 14 peaks are as follows:
- Mt Massive
- Mt Elbert
- La Plata Peak
- Mt Huron
- Mt Missouri
- Mt Belford
- Mt Oxford
- Mt Harvard
- Mt Columbia
- Mt Yale
- Mt Princeton
- Mt Antero
- Mt Tabaguache (pronounced Tahb-a-wash)
- Mt Shavano
The route to connect them is “not a trail” — it is a largely off-trail traversal through one of Colorado’s most beautiful alpine regions, which connects peaks in as efficient of a manner as possible. While there is no “defined” trail to use, enough folks have now attempted the Nolan’s 14, that there is decent “beta” (route information) available to know how to connect them. What’s more, there is also Strava tracking data, because most people attempting Nolan’s 14 track their hikes! That means there is pretty good visibility on the route options.
Deviating to the Nolan’s Line?
When I did my hike, my goal was not to connect these peaks in as efficient of a manner as possible, as quickly as possible. My goal was to do some good backpacking while sumitting all 14 peaks.
Others have had this idea, which has led to the “creation” of the Slow-Nolan’s-14, or “Slowlans.” However, I will note that the vibes and feel of a trip like that can feel pretty different from a longer thru-hike, with frequent resupplies and periods of groovy trail. Which, among other reasons, is why the Collegiate Loop option called to me!
Given that the Nolan’s Line is “the most efficient” way to bag the peaks in this area, one can deviate from the Collegiate Loop to the main Nolan’s 14 line to cut miles and shorten the trip. Cuts to the Nolan’s line, however, will be largely off-trail, which means the hiking will be significantly more challenging, but over fewer miles.
If you ARE going to make cuts from the Collegiate Loop to the Nolan’s line, I think the most straight-forward cuts are:
- Columbia to Yale
- Antero to Tabaguache
- Huron to Missouri (this would require a different strategy for peak bagging than what I outlined above)
Every time I pondered making cuts to the Nolan’s line, I ultimately decided to go back to my Collegiate Loop plan.
Strava Heat Map to estimate the Nolan’s Line
It’s possible to integrate a Strava Heat Map layer into Gaia GPS. I’ve gone ahead and done this, and then tried to roughly average the Strava tracks together to approximate a “correct” Nolan’s 14 line. I’ve created a track of this route and have upladed it to CalTopo. Nolan’s 14 Line from Strava Heat Map
Approximating the Nolan’s Line using Strava Heat Map
Gear
I made a “pretty big” change to my gear list for this trip compared to others. This is the first time I’ve decided to rely on SilNylon rain gear compared to something else for a long-ish trip. SilNylon is a material that has zero breathability — which means you get wet from sweat, but not from precipitation. Because of this, SilNylon integrates mechanical venting (pit zips) to try and allow addequate heat and vapor dissipation.
Because I was concerned about using a down jacket with a SilNylon shell, I decided to opt for a Patagonia Houdini (wind layer) with an Alpha Direct (Senchi hoodie) mid-layer. Alpha Direct is a very warm, light fabric, but dissipates heat rapdily when moving or if there is wind or a breeze. To combat this, you can couple it with a Houdini (or other layer likely to block wind). Using my SilNylon shell instead of the Houdini was certainly an option, but Houdinis are much more breathable when moving, and I wanted to try this out!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the Houdini. My Senchi mid-layer acted pretty much only as a pillow. I was fortunate enough to avoid most storms, having only 4 hours-or-so of rain while I was hiking. For this slight rainy period, I used my SilNylon layers. For the rest of my hike, I just rocked the Houdini! This was seriously perfect for summitting 14ers where the winds were fierce, but heat build-up from the ascent would otherwise be a problem with more insulated layers.
Overall, I’m excited to use this combo of gear in the future, and may be relegating my down puffy exclusively for shoulder-season trips!