From Herman Gulch, Watrous Gulch trailhead

A hike of Parnassus and Bard was the best thing that Ken and I could think of doing this weekend.  It wasn’t a real original choice, but it would give us some good exercise and training, plus, Ken hadn’t climbed these mountains yet.  We left from the 4th and Union Park-n-Ride around 7 am and began hiking around 8.  It was a really nice morning and we made good time up Watrous Gulch.  We didn’t need snowshoes until we turned north and headed up into the main part of the gulch.  We were sort of taking a leisurely pace, taking pictures, etc. but we made pretty good time. 

We decided to stash our snowshoes pretty high up in the gulch.  We split up for a little while, I headed for the saddle while Ken triangulated and headed up the peak while bearing for the ridge.   When I hit the ridge, I ran into a wall of wind.  Arrr, not again! It was ALWAYS windy up here during the past few months.  I struggled up the ridge and eventually ran into Ken. We took a break to put on some extra clothes.  At one point, I took of my balaclava and a gust of wind ripped it from my hands.  It began blowing towards the ridge so I ran after it and dived on the snow, grabbing it at the last minute.   I had only had that balaclava for one trip so it was way too early for the wind to claim it.
 
We continued up Parnassus’s northwest ridge and came to the flat point which lay just a few feet below the true summit.  We had some nice views from here.At the true summit we took a quick break.  Ken didn’t really feel like going on to Bard.  A few minutes later, though, he decided to go for it so we headed out.  About an 45 minutes later we arrived at the top.  We spotted downtown  Denver from the top of Bard and I realized, finally, what that mystery peak between James and Gray’s and Torrey’s was.   It was Bard obviously!

We were pretty pooped at this point but we still had another mountain to climb – Parnassus again!  We headed back down and back up Parnassus.  Now, we were really tired but we stumbled back down the peak and spread out to find our snowshoes.  The terrain was so non-distinct that it was hard to identify the spot.  Without any retracing, we found the snowshoes and headed out.  We arrived back at the car about an hour later.
 
Start hike:    7:55 AM, 10,200 ft
Arrive at saddle:    10:38 AM, 12,600 ft
Leave Parnassus:    11:51 AM, 13,574 ft
Arrive on Bard:    12:55 PM, 13,641 ft
Arrive back at Parnassus:    2:14 PM, 13,574 ft
Leave Parnassus:    2:33 PM, 13,574 ft
Arrive at trailhead:    4:14 PM, 10,200 ft