#ThrowbackThursday: Climbing Mount Princeton

James R. Wade ’59 led a winter ascent of Mount Princeton in 1964. (PAW Archives)

Published in the Jan. 7, 2015, Issue

Over the years, many Princetonians have made the gallant trek up the 14,204-foot-high Mount Princeton in Colorado. The “intrepid” William Libbey, Jr. ’77 (1877, that is) made the first recorded ascent less than a month after graduating, PAW reported.

Part of the Class of â72âs summit contingent. (Bob Wright â72)

Part of the Class of ’72’s summit contingent. (Bob Wright ’72)

More recently, 33 classmates from the Class of 1972 embarked on a trek up the mountain; 24 made it to the top for what must have been a breathtaking mini-reunion. Mt. Princeton is the fourth highest summit in the Collegiate Peaks of the Sawatch Range of the Rockies. It edges out Mt. Yale next door but is 222 feet shorter than Mt. Harvard. No matter, because as PAW reported in 1964: “Mt. Princeton is universally conceded to be the handsomest.”

1 Response

Peter Severson ’09

1 Year Ago

The View from 14,200 Feet (Mount Yale)

I was recently hiking in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, a few hours south of my home in Colorado, and I reached the summit of Mount Yale on July 21. For many decades, intrepid Elis have toted rocks to the summit in a geologically futile attempt to surpass the elevation of nearby Mount Princeton, a picture-perfect peak that stands four feet higher at 14,204 feet. When I summited Yale, I discovered a large stick that I assume had been left there for the same competitive purpose. Honor (and wilderness ethics) bound me to leave the summit undisturbed, but I couldn’t help but take one photo of the view with my Princeton hat for posterity.