Via Apache Couloir

In previous years, it seemed that the Indian Peaks were crowd-free for the most part.  At least the high peaks were fairly solitary; the lake trails were always very crowded with enthusiasts admiring the beauty.  That seemed to change in the year 2000.  The climbs which I thought would not be too populated felt like fourteener climbs somtimes.  Apache couloir was super popular on Saturday, June 17th.   Probably because the road to Brainard Lake had just opened and all the snow-climbing enthusiasts wanted a chance at the east-facing Apache Couloir before it melted out. 

Apache couloir is a moderate snow climb.  It feels like a fairly consistent 40-45 degree climb the whole way.  Since I’d been snow-climbing since the middle of Spring, I’d already experienced some pretty scary climbs  (most notably Skywalker Couloir on South Arapaho Peak) so I was a little more accustomed to steep couloirs and this wasn’t to frightening to me at all.  However, I wouldn’t recommend Apache Couloir as an intro into snow climbing; it’s a little too advanced for that.
 
Ken and I left Denver around 4:30 am and began the hike just after 5:30.   The hike begins at the Long Lake trailhead, however, the road to the two lake trailheads were closed so most hikers were hiking up the road to get to the trailhead.   Fortunately, from taking various people up to Lake Isabel, I knew of a “back way”, the Niwot cutoff trail.  We parked next to the trail, hiked up it, and arrived at Long Lake after a little more than ten minutes.  Along Long Lake, we ran into a few hikers and discovered that each of them was heading for the couloir as well!

The trail branches at beautiful Lake Isabel and the main trail heads up to Pawnee Pass while the trail to the Isabel Glacier and the Apache couloir.  It’s approximately 4 miles to the base of the couloir and, as a result from taking pictures and our leisurly pace, we arrived fairly late, around 8am.
 
To our surprise, there were already about 5-7 people in the couloir.   This was the popular climb of the day!  After putting on our crampons, we began heading up the couloir at a really fast pace.  I like to move fast in couloirs mainly because, due to the nature of the climbing, it’s very tiring on the legs and calfs.   Also, on the east facing couloirs, the sun quickly softens up the snow making it very soft slick.  Despite our quick pace, we took one rest stop halfway up.  The climb was actually very straightforward.  The angle never exceeded 45 degrees and the climb ended with the couloir fanning out into a wide 300 foot snowfield to climb to the ridge about 75 feet beneath the summit.  On the summit, we ate, sunbathed, identified other peaks, and, with a clear view of the Fair Glacier Cirque, planned our climb of Lone Eagle, which we’ll tackle possibly in late summer.
 
We also hiked part way along the ridge to Shoshoni, stopping on a rock pinnacle just before it got real scary.   The ridge to Shoshoni is unbelievably difficult looking.  It looks super-exposed and I’d imagine that it would have to be done as a technical climb, due to the consistently steep pinnacles.
 
We decided to attempt a glissade down the Queen’s Way couloir.   Queen’s Way is the less demanding couloir on Apache Peak.  It’s only about 35 degrees, but it’s a very symmetrical and aesthetic couloir with nice views of the Isabel Glacier and Shoshoni Peak.  There were some other climbers gathered at the top of the couloir who looked like they were waiting for someone else to go first.  That was Ken’s job.  Being the braver one when it comes to slick surfaces, he hopped on the snow and whizzed down.  I followed after him doing a lot of braking.  Whenever I removed my ice axe from dragging in the snow, I picked up speed really fast.  So, I kept in there pretty hard near the top part, but as the angle eased, we both released the brakes and flew down.  Queen’s way is a stellar glissade.  It’s really fast and very long, about 900 feet.  We had climbed Castle Peak during the first weekend of May.  Castle Peak is reputed as having one of the best glissades, but Queen’s Way couloir, along with Buffalo Mountain in the Gore Range, was much better!

Via Neva’s northwest ridge, to Jasper Peak, down “Gaiteraid” snowfield, return via Diamond Lake trail

A loop climb of Mount Neva and Mount Jasper was a hike that I’d been wanting to do for a long time.  The hike I’d planned started at the 4th of July trailhead in the southern Indian Peaks and headed up to Arapaho Pass, about 3-4 miles from the trailhead.  From Arapaho Pass, start climbing the 4th class ridge northwest of Mount Neva and ascend it to the summit.  From Mount Neva, hike along an easy ridge to Jasper Peak.  Glissade down Jasper Peak and hike down to Diamond Lake and back to the 4th of July Trailhead using the Diamond Lake trail.

Ken and I set out from the 4th of July Trailhead around 6am and headed for Arapaho Pass.  This was the second week in a row that we’d hiked this section of trail.  The week before we climbed both South and North Arapaho Peaks.  We arrived at Arapaho Pass under royal blue skies and timorously eyed the ridge; it looked really hard from where we stood.
 
The ridge had a 3 deep notches we had to climb over.  From where we were the ridge looked really thin, but often your perception of a mountain is not accurate.   We started up the grassy alpine slopes and the grass eventually yielded to rocks and ridge.  The first part of the ridge was fairly thin but was nice and even and a pleasure to walk along.  We encountered nothing harder than 3rd class scrambling on the first notch, the one that appeared the steepest.  There was a little elusive route to the left of the ridge that bypassed most of the notch.  We had to do a little bit of scouting on the second notch and noticed again that the easiest and most practical route was a line that dropped to the left of the notch.

The crux of the climb was the large slab buttress about 3/4ths the way along the ridge.  I picked out two possible routes to take.  The first went right over the buttress along a thin ramp.  This route didn’t look hard really at all but it was very exposed.  So, we opted for the second route which was a direct climb up the wide face of the ridge.  This is the 4th class section (right) but I found that it was very easy because there were so many small ramps, benches, footholds, and handholds.   It was steep, but without a fear of heights, it’s not a problem at all.   After climbing up this 100 foot section, we were faced with a few more airy ridge points.  It was nothing too difficult but it was lots of fun.  After the ridge relented, we had gentle slopes that led us to the small summit.  We hung out here for a while, took some pictures, and ate an early lunch.  Then we headed off to Jasper Peak.
 
The hike to Jasper Peak was really easy and enjoyable.  This is a very solitary hike as well.  We had only encountered one other small party on the summit of Neva that had climbed the “Juliet” couloir.  After leaving Neva, we saw no one.  Jasper Peak is another fun summit with great views.  The view of Mount Neva is really neat from this angle too.  We began checking out the snow climbs on Mount Jasper and they looked really steep from where we were, even though they’re generally not quite as hard as some of the others that we had done in the Indian Peaks.   Both “Snow Lion” and “Snow Leopard” looked really steep.   We were planning to glissade down Jasper Peak but I personally wasn’t about to go sliding down these snow chutes.  “Gaiteraid” snowfield on the other hand looked perfect so that’s what we did.  The top of the snowfield is bordered by a small, safe cornice so we just planted our ice axes in the top, scooted over the top, pulled our axes out, and zoomed down.  The glissade was awesome although a bit shorter than some of the huge ones that we had already done this year.  Still, it was great.  We arrived quickly at upper Diamond Lake where we had great views of the east face of Jasper Peak.

The hike from Japser Peak to Diamond Lake really made the hike for me.   There was no trail, no people, and it felt totally wild and isolated.  It was exceptionally beautiful too, even for the Indian Peaks.  We eventually arrived at Diamond Lake and encountered some other hikers and some fishermen.  The hike from the Lake back to the 4th of July trailhead heads back due west for over a mile so it’s kind of confusing if you have a sense of direction.  At the base of the valley, the trail crosses a creek at a beautiful cataract and heads back east and eventually hooks up with the Arapaho Pass trail.  Because of the mixed nature of this climb (the 4th class ridge, the isolation of Jasper, the great glissade, and the rugged beauty of the upper Diamond Lake valley), this was no doubt one of my all-time favorites. 

Skywalker Couloir to South Arapaho, connecting ridge to North Arapaho

Ken and Dan had been talking about climbing South Arapaho Peak via Skywalker Couloir (named for Luke Skywalker!) for a long time.  Because a trip to Holy Cross was still a couple of weeks away due to road closures, Ken and I elected to accompany Dan and a friend of his on a climb of Skywalker.  

Skywalker is a particularly popular couloir in Colorado.  It’s probably on the average of 45-50 degrees the whole way, and the end has several possible variations, an “easy” exit to the left, “Princess Leia” up steep snow in the middle, and “Han Solo” up a steep rock band to the right. Everyone was planning on climbing the “Princess Leia” finish but Ken had shown me pictures from the Internet of it and it looked way too steep for my liking.  So…we brought rope and protection.
 
Ken stayed at my house Friday night and we woke up at a painful 3:30 am to meet Dan and Dean at the trailhead at 5:15.  We made it up to the couloir and began climbing it by 6:30.  It was fun and easy at first and my crampons bit into the snow nicely and I moved up quickly.  The couloir starts out very wide at the base of the mountain and becomes more steep as it becomes more inset.  Our group was spread out quite a bit.  Dean was out in the front with another duo who had passed us while we were putting on our crampons.  Then, Ken and I followed.  Dan inadvertently brought up the rear because a crampon of his popped off twice. 

I looked up ahead and saw Dean and the other climbers exiting through the 200 foot steep chute called “Princess Leia”.  Even though steepness is hard to judge looking straight up, I could tell that it was really steep because they had begun using their hands and were using the pick of their ice axes instead of the base.  They were up and over quickly though.  Then it was our turn.  For the most part, the climbing was easy and not too frightening because the other climbers had kicked in some nice cup steps for us.  A couple of times, however, the snow got too hard for kick steps and as I crossed over these steep sections, I felt really exposed.  I’m just not too comfortable on snow. Everyone else had no problem at all, but I was moving slowly and cautiously.  Then Ken and I started up Princess Leia. It got steep really fast, probably about 60-70 degrees. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the cup steps.  Ken fearlessly zoomed on up in front of me.  Then I had to cross over some hard snow to get around a small bergeschrund. That was the scariest part of the climb.  I moved slowly and made sure my ice axe and crampons were secure before moving.  It only lasted a few steps though and I was back in the cups.  Soon, I exited, thrilled that I had succeeded.

We took off our crampons, put up our ice axes and rock-hopped our way about 200 feet more to the saddle to the west of South Arapaho’s summit.  I was feeling really tired upon arrival but after a short rest was ready to attempt North Arapaho for the second time over the 3rd class ridge.  We convinced Dan and Dean to come along. Everyone dumped their packs but opted to bring along ice axes.  I decided to leave everything behind, even my ice axe.  It turned out to be a good decision since the ridge was 99% devoid of snow.   The ridge was much easier this time around, compared to when I climbed the Arapahos a couple of years ago.  I suppose I’m just getting more accustomed to harder hikes and climbs.  Dean and I arrived on the top of North Arapaho after climbing up an unnecessary 20-foot wall just to make it fun.  When the others arrived, we identified mountains around us, laid around a while, then headed back down to South Arapaho.
 
We hit the summit of South Arapaho and spent a few minutes there and then headed down the mountain.  The rest of the hike followed the standard route out.  As is typical with the Indian Peaks, there were a lot of people hiking up when we got down below the mine and into the trees.  Many of them asked us all sorts of questions about Skywalker and the Arapahos.