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

From west slopes on Highway 9

I had been wanting to do Mount Silverheels for a while and winter was the perfect time to do it.  Plus, this was a great training hike for Orizaba.  Kirk decided to join Ken and I after his brother decided not to hike Mount Democrat that weekend.  We headed out in my Jeep down 285 and found the turnout where we would park.  We approached Mount Silverheels from the west.

The day was overcast and fairly cold.  The beginning of the hike follwed a road for about a third of a mile, then it was bushwacking straight up a steep loose slope.  We arrived at higher ground and felt the wind pick up.  Then we found the powerlines and the road again as we began descending into the drainage at the base of the west slopes of the mountain.  We hiked right by a small avalanche runnoff that had occurred apparently only moments before we’d passed by.  The slopes on Silverheels itself were very safe.

The wind really started picking up at the base of the mountain and were pretty strong all the way up.  The wind was blowing so hard that Silverheels was pretty much blown clean.

Mount Silverheels is such a broad and huge mountain but the route was easy to follow.   The climb was becoming increasingly difficult because of the wind.  Normally, the mountain is probably very easy because it’s so gentle.  But strong wind always makes a climb tougher and this was certainly true for this trip.  I was feeling pretty good though and ended up getting way in front of Kirk and Ken.  I had to stop from time to time, sometimes for about 10 mintues, while I waited for them to get within visibility.  At this point, the visibility was still good but the long distances on these huge slopes made it hard to see very far. 

I finally saw the summit block.  As I rounded a small rock outcropping I was hit by the hardest winds I’d ever felt.  The winds were very hard below the summit but it was as if the summit itself (which was a flat area of about 10000 square feet) was in the jet stream.  These winds must have easily been 80 to 90 miles per hour.  The wind was blowing from the north and as I stumbled along, were forcing me over the south side.  I had to turn into the wind to make the summit shelter.  I simply couldn’t fight against these winds on two feet so I dropped to my knees and crawled about 30 feet to the summit.   The shelter had snow in it but I managed to dig a small trench to lay in while I waited for Kirk and Ken.  About 10 minutes later, I saw Ken about to round the corner.  He got knocked on his rear end as soon as the wind hit him.  He managed to struggle on two feet to the summit though.  Kirk made it about 5 minutes later.
 
We tried to take multiple pictures on the summit but the cameras froze up after the first picture.  We had to shout at each other at the top of our lungs at point blank range in order to be heard.  After a few minutes, we cinched every piece of clothing and headed down.   The wind was so hard that we had to lean really far into it in order to remain on our feet.  I think I remember seeing Kirk get knocked over too.  Thankfully, once we dropped about 30 feet below the summit, the wind abated.  The wind that remained would still have been considered brutally hard, but it was a mere breeze compared to what was on the summit. 

The clouds really had moved in by now and visibility was dropping. It had begun to snow as well.  We retraced our steps and went back over the sub peak and headed back down.  When we got back to the drainage, it was really snowing hard. It was really picturesque amongst the evergreens but we had to hurry and get back to the car and get out of here before the roads began closing.  We finally made it back to the car in a downpour of snow.   The drive back was an adventure as well.  On 285 between Jefferson and Fairplay, the snow was blowing so hard across the road that it was, at times, impossible to see.  You might as well have just closed your eyes and drived.  At these times, we had to put on the hazzards and just stop.  We thankfully, made it back to Denver with no problems.

From Bakerville Exit up North Ridge

Kelso Mountain is over one thousand feet lower than it’s fourteener neighbors, Grays and Torreys. Ken and I decided to hike a mountain that didn’t require too much. This is certainly true in summer, but Kelso was much more difficult than Grays or Torreys in the conditions we had. The snow finally came to the mountains and even though this was technically before the winter solstice, these conditions were quite wintery. In fact, these fall conditions were more difficult than the winter conditions that I experienced in early 1999.
 
We drove up the Bakerville exit and decided to see how high we could drive. It turned out that, even though the road was snowpacked, we were able to make it up very high. Instead of parking at the turnoff to Grizzly Gulch, we decided to park at a bend in the road. We did want SOME distance to hike. We began hiking up the road. Our route was going to be the prominent north ridge on Kelso. We decided to hike up the Stevens Gulch road as past the first mine, and look for the clearing that lead to the ridge. It was very easy to find. We left the road and began bushwacking through the drainage and up the mountains shoulder to the ridge. This was by far the most difficult part of the hike. The snow was very powdery and slippery. Once we broke out of treeline, the climbing was much easier, but it got really cold. Ken’s thermometer read 4 degrees at the coldest. It very windy on the ridge too. We were wearing all of our gear at this point.
 
The ridge was really picturesque at this point. It looked really extreme. Speaking of extreme, the view of Torreys from here is amazing. This ridge is definitely the best spot to view Torreys. It looks like a totally different mountain from this angle. There were very strong winds on Torreys as evidenced by the plumes of snow blowing off the summit. Actually, there were really nasty clouds at the head of Grizzly Gulch around Grizzly Peak. Torreys was periodically surrounded by the clouds as well, but they seemed to burn up before arriving at Kelso, thankfully.
 
We continued up the long ridge and finally crested the summit, expecting the winds to be really hard but, to our surprise, it was very calm on the top. It felt really nice in the warm sun. We explored around on the summit for 45 minutes or so. We wandered down to the other side of the summit, horseplayed, and even took a short nap. We bundled up for the hike down. On the way up, I had realized that my ice axe popped out and was laying somewhere along the route. We headed back down looking for the axe. Along the way, I slipped and fell and bashed my leg. It really hurt, but left no permanent damage. Once we got back into the trees, we plunge-stepped quickly down the mountain in the thick snow. I found the ice axe almost completely buried just above the drainage. I’m glad I didn’t have to replace it! Because of the close call, I sewed ice axe loops into my pack the following week. We were glad to get back to the road, surprised at how difficult the peak actually was.

4th class Southeast Ridge, Audubon/Paiute Ridge

This trip included both Audubon and Paiute peaks.  Ken convinced me that we should climb a different route on the peak. He chose the southeast ridge which was pretty non-descript except for a notch that had to be downclimbed. From there we would hike the gentle slopes to the summit, then take the 3rd class ridge to Paiute.

We began by hiking up to Mitchell lake and circumvented it on it’s west side and hiked up to the ridge below the huge cirque on Audubon.  At this point, the ridge was very wide. Up ahead though, we could see where the notch was. When we arrived there, it looked more difficult than the 3rd class rating it had in the Indian Peaks book.  I went first and found a reasonable route down.  This was way beyond 3rd class. This was unmistakeably 4th class.  It was probably about a 100 foot downclimb.  Take a look at the photo on the left.  This was the downclimb.  (Note:  move your mouse over the image to see the route that we downclimbed)  Yikes.  It was very steep and above sheet of ice.  OK, so it looked pretty spooky but I was pretty psyched and enjoyed leading the route down.  On the other side, we had to climb up easy 3rd class benches for about 80 feet.  From the top of the notch, the climb to the summit was uneventful, but beautiful and inspiring.

After spending a few minutes on the summit of Audubon, we started the hike down the Paiute ridge (right).  The ridge was rated 3rd class too.  However, it was so much easier than 3rd class.  I think the rating should be only 2nd class.  The notch was so much more difficult and exposed than the ridge; I suppose that the 3rd class rating on both is an error. 

The hike from here is pretty easy and doesn’t take that long at all.  Ken started getting tired and I went on ahead and summited first.  Ken made it about 10 minutes later.
 
The views from the summit of Paiute are great.  You can see into the Lone Eagle Cirque, although Lone Eagle is sort of hard to pick out from this angle.  The peak is very steep on all sides.  We headed down into the Blue Lake valley.  We should have scouted the return route better – we ended up heading straight down the face instead of a much easier rib on the southeast side.  We continually had to retrace our steps because we ended up above cliffs.  Sometimes, we simply had to downclimb the cliffs.  At one point, I chose one way, and Ken chose another.  I ended up getting down before him and watched him as he attempted a vertical 10-foot downclimb.  Suddenly, his foot slipped and he came crashing down on his side in the snow.  Good thing it was snow and not rock!  At first, I was worried that he was hurt but he began laughing.  It was pretty funny.

We finally ended up at a frozen lake above Blue Lake.  The lake is surrounded by many rocks and boulders and is very difficult to traverse around.  So, we decided to risk it and walked along the ice on the edge of the lake.  There was no danger but we were sort of scared since it was so warm.  We were wearing only our shirts and shorts, yet the lake was quite frozen.  We tossed a couple of giant rocks into the air and on to the lake; none of them could break through. 

The frozen lake was the final problem of the hike. After arriving at Blue Lake, we zoomed down the trail, making time pass quickly by working on speaking Spanish.