Fortunately the rain let up before I got up. I was hiking by 5:40. This time of year that meant I was starting in the dark. I headed up the road for a while (and was glad I didn't try to drive up it) and soon headed up the east slope trail. I saw the sunrise here before getting onto the steeper talus. Soon there was a bit of snow with an icy surface to contend with. I brought my Kahtoola microspikes this day (partly because I sort of wanted them the day before) and was quite glad to be able to just tromp up the steep snowy bits rather than delicately step from clear rock to rock. Some of it was snow with ice on top, other places were more hail/graupel. There were some others heading up without the spikes and I was definitely having an easier go of it. One advantage of driving up the 4wd road a ways was that I had a shorter distance to go. I made it to the 14,197 foot summit by 8:35.
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I was soon joined by 2 Katies on the summit and we took turns taking each other's pics and talked about 14ers and other peaks. They even gave me a summit sandwich made with love - the best kind. Crunching down with the microspikes was pretty easy although there was a time when the ice was thinning out that I had to decide when to take them off and switch from stepping on the snow to avoiding it. Back at the truck I white knuckled down the road (the driving wasn't that bad, but if I met another vehicle coming up it would have been bad).
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I cooked up a second lunch/early dinner in the park, went to the library, and on to the grocery store in Buena Vista. There I weighed and measured my body fat and blood pressure on one of those machines by the pharmacy. Supposedly all this hiking uphill had my bodyfat up to 28.8%...
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That evening I drove up to the next trailhead. There was only parking along the road, so I went a bit past it to a better pullout. Once again it was raining in the afternoon/evening.
Summary of September 1st, one 14er, about 6.5 miles and 3300 feet of elevation gain. Nice sunrise, microspikes for icy snow, good companions and summit sandwich up top.