Mount Bierstadt

Mount Bierstadt is a 14065 ft mountain summit in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The fourteener is located in the Mount Evans Wilderness of Pike National Forest, 15.1 km south by east (bearing 171°) of the Town of Georgetown in Clear Creek County. It was named in honor of Albert Bierstadt, an American landscape painter who made the first recorded summit of the mountain in 1863.

Mountain
Mount Bierstadt is located 2.2 km west by south of Mount Blue Sky and 70.5 km west by south of downtown Denver.

Because it is generally considered an easy climb, along with its accessibility from nearby Denver, Mount Bierstadt is one of the most popular mountains to climb in Colorado. As with most peaks in Colorado, July and August make the best months for climbing Mount Bierstadt.

The most popular base from which to begin ascent of Mount Bierstadt is Guanella Pass, located to the west. From Guanella Pass it is approximately a 7 mi hike, with a climb of 2391 ft. The trail descends slightly into the fairly level marshlands surrounding Scott Gomer Creek before reaching Bierstadt's western slopes. On the rocky upper regions of the mountain the route of the trail is marked by a series of cairns. The trail levels about 200 ft below the summit at saddle point before beginning the final ascent. Alternative trails cover the eastern slopes for longer hikes.

Once at the summit, a popular option is to continue the hike to nearby Mount Blue Sky along a ridge known as The Sawtooth, an intermediate-level hike that overlooks Abyss Lake, which occupies the bottom of the valley separating Bierstadt and Blue Sky.

Albert Bierstadt's painting A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie is based on sketches he made during his 1863 visit to the area. That painting shows either Mount Spalding or Mount Blue Sky (it is ambiguous) from the Chicago Lakes, 3 mi north-northwest, but Bierstadt and his guide William Byers climbed onward to the summit of either Blue Sky or Spalding (the account is ambiguous).