After 2+ decades of driving and flying into CO from TX and now NY, this flatlander is now in the ABC (all but culebra) club! I purposely wanted to finish on Sunlight, Windom, Mt/N Eolus' so old and new hiking friends could take the train with me into the Chicago Basin.

Our crew of 7 (NY, WA, TX, and CO) took the train in on 7/31 and around 6.2 miles I found a fantastic spot in the trees, about 100 ft from the trail, near the river, that easily managed 5 tents.
Being the flatlander's that we are we (except for Megan from CO also ticking off 14ers) decided to wake up at 430AM and make sure we were on the trail before sunrise to manage altitude and afternoon storms. Since Sunlight was a class 4, I wanted to knock that out first and then cut over to Windom for some easier class 2.

As the morning sun was peaking over we made our way up the red scree and into the climbing section of the hike. As far as Sunlight class 4 goes, I would say it was fairly straight forward and didn't feel exposed. The rock is grippy and the climbs are in short spurts. We only saw 1 other person who was coming down and apparently doing all 4 that day. Kuddos to that guy!

I thought the top boulder on the 'leap of faith' top was going to be a little bigger! It was not in my comfort zone to stand up on it so I rodeo'd for a selfie. I also felt more comfortable jumping down, rather than climbing down, so my comfort zone is all over the place :-D Megan from CO was with me and also summited the leap of faith boulders. It took us about 3:30 hours to summit from base camp.

As we descended three of our crew were coming up but ultimately only 1 made it to the summit after we left.

We decided to take the short cut over to Windom without going back down to the lakes and we were on top in about an hour from the the bottom of the red scree. I think class 2 for Windom is generous but it was also straight forward and I enjoyed another climb to the top above the marker. It was getting close to noon as we were descending and there were some dark clouds rolling in but other than a few sprinkles it was a perfect day.

Friday was another 430AM wake up for MT/N Eolus. While Thursday was relatively light in traffic there were lots of people on the trail that morning. As we made our way up the beginning chute climb of Mt Eolus, there were ~8 people already ahead of us and more coming up the trail. We made our way over the cat walk and had a startle when one of the big boulders moved. Not a lot, but just enough for your heart rate to jump. If you were ever thinking of doing the Maroon Traverse, this is a perfect training route for that!

14ers.com statement of Exposure - High and Route Finding - Considerable, is not misleading. There were cairns and paths scattered up the face but we stuck to the standard route (according to this site) that went far left and made our way to the top. That still left plenty of route finding to be done. It took Megan and I about 4 hours to summit Mt Eolus from base camp but unfortunately no one else in our party made it.

The return was fairly straight forward as you can see and pick a defined path back down the face. Crossing back over the cat walk I stepped back on the split rock and it definitely moves. As long as you are moving forward it's fine but with an off balance push to the side I can imagine the same scenario that happened on the Maroon Bells Traverse, where the rock suddenly gave way, will happen over the next few years after some freezing.

N Eolus was a walk in the park compared to the others with just a couple sections where you needed to use your hands. Our buddy Doug who also made it up Sunlight, summited N Eolus just before us so it was great to have some friendly faces to end my ABC 14ers. 57 of 58!

We made our way back to the lakes for some snacks and relaxation but a dark cloud rolled in so we headed back to camp. We passed several parties still going up the basin Eolus trail. I'm still curious if any of them made the summit before the storm rolled in.