From Leavick

This was my second climb of Mount Sherman and therefore the first fourteener that I’ve ever repeated. Ken needed to climb it in pursuit of climbing all the Colorado fourteeners so I decided to go along. We also were planning on climbing Mount Sheridan and Gemini Peak on either side of Mount Sherman. We were able to drive up the Leavick road quite a way. The scenery around this mountain is so much more bland than other places in Colorado. The only reason to climb here is to take care of Mount Sherman or to train in off-seasons for other peaks.
 
We started off by hiking towards Mount Sheridan. We hiked into a small basin between Sherman and Sheridan. The only colors present were an off-brown and white, very bland indeed. We started up the fairly gentle slopes of Mount Sheridan and then moved onto a snow slope that turned out to be moderately steep. But we made quick time and arrived on the top of Mount Sheridan. At the west end of the summit is a large cairn. We took a break here, ate a little bit, identified Sawatch mountains and then headed out to Mount Sherman. 
 
I had been talking about how cool the ridge was on Mount Sherman, especially with snow. Well, it turned out that there was much less snow this year, and we were even 3 weeks before the time that I had done it a couple of years prior. So, the ridge wasn’t much of an exciting climb. It was mostly gravel. Still, it was enjoyable. We made it on top without any problems. I had decided that I wanted to go on to Gemini but Ken wasn’t really into it. I told him he could wait for me here and then he decided to go along. We decided to hike as fast as we could to Gemini. It only took us about 15-20 minutes to reach the summit. The summit is actually only about a 150 foot climb. Why this is a named peak, I have no idea. But, we bagged it and took our picture on the top. Then we headed back over Mount Sherman. Climbing Gemini so fast had apparently sapped us as the hike back over Sherman was grueling. We met some other climbers who were decked out as if they were climbing K2. They had on crampons, ice tools, protection, ropes, all sorts of stuff. Why they needed that gear on this mountain, I have no idea. They said they climbed White Ridge, but still! Talk about overkill.

After eating a short lunch, we hiked back down the Sherman/Sheridan saddle and decided to glissade. We discovered, however, that the eastern slopes were blocked by a cornice. That didn’t stop us though (although I was a bit scared). The cornices were in no danger of breaking off so we planted our ice axes in the base, and scooted over the edge, got secure, removed our ice axes and zipped down. It was a short fast glissade. Another good one after the awesome one on Castle Peak.  We passed by a couple of old mines and then were outta there.

From Dry Gulch

Finally, we went to Hagar Mountain on a nice day.  We’d been planning on climbing Hagar for a long time, but at least three other times, we had decided not to go the day before because of bad weather forecasts.  The weekend before this one, we tried to climb the peak late in the day (starting around noon) but had to turn around because of clouds, snow, and thunder.  Well, after three weekends of bad weather, we finally got our chance at Hagar.  Kirk and Jim were going as well so we decided to all go together.  We met at the 4th and Union Park-n-Ride at 6am and were hiking by 7:15 am. 

We started at the very end of the Dry Gulch Frontage Road which was closed basically at the left turn leading to Loveland Pass.  The closure added an additional .75 miles each way to the trip.  Fortunately, it was over fairly level ground although it was admittedly a pain on the way out!
 
We were able to follow snowmobile tracks pretty much the entire way up the mountain.  After the gulch started to head westwards, the other guys all put on their snowshoes.I decided to keep mine off and didn’t end up using them until the hike out.We hiked nearly to the very end of the gulch then turned north and headed straight for the saddle to the immediate left of Hagar.  From there we would climb the ridge over the false summit and on to the true summit.

The snow was in perfect condition and the climb up to the saddle was perfect.The slope was probably about 35 to 40 degrees and we just kicked nice steps into the snow and zipped right up.At the saddle, I decided to drop my pack and didn’t carry anything to the summit.There was no wind on the saddle so I didn’t expect any on the summit.I was also not quite in my usual condition so I was working a bit harder than the other guys who kept their packs.Without my pack, I was able to climb very fast.I basically followed in Ken’s footsteps all the way up the ridge,about 40 degrees.It didn’t take long to get up to the false summit.
 
From the false summit, we had a great view of the true summit.It looked really fun and we were really excited about trying it.Ken and I went first so Kirk and Jim could take pictures of us climbing.You can see us about midway up the ridge in the above picture.The snow was a bit steeper here.One section was probably about 55 degrees but it was short and the snow was so perfect that there was nothing to it.Ken and I flew up the summit and celebrated.Then Kirk and Jim started and we took pictures of them. 
 
The weather was perfect this day.The summit was warm and there was no wind at all.So we spent nearly an hour scampering from place to place along the ridge posing for pictures.The north side of the mountain is even steeper than the south side.In fact, it’s about a 500 foot sheer drop to start with.
 
We had the best glissade of all time on the way down.I think I got going faster than ever on the glissade down from the ridge to the saddle.Ken and I raced down the rest of the way.He started off faster than me but got out of control and flipped.If the race was about speed,then he won.Kirk got going pretty fast too and ended up wiping out.

The hike out was uneventful except that I had a pretty powerful altitude headache caused by,I assume, not being out in the mountains for so long.This was the first mountain that I’d climbed since Citlalt閜etl and it was a great way to start the climbing season.Ken ranked it as his current number one climb in Colorado.As I write this I’m totally excited about our upcoming climb of Castle Peak in the Elks!

(April 2001):  After the summer of 2000 was over, Hagar mountain sort of faded into the background as we took one amazing trip after the other.Click here for the best trips.

From Michigan Creek Campground area

Boreas Mountain was another CMC trip that I signed up with.  My buddy, Kirk, had signed up for it and I felt like getting out this weekend so I went.  This was the first time that I’d done any of the peaks in the South Park area.  For the most part, the peaks aren’t too exciting but I really enjoyed the trip nonetheless.  Mount Guyot, on the other hand, is a very impressive mountain, especially from this side.  Mount Guyot has a giant cirque encapsulated by a steep face.  It looks very alpine.  Mount Guyot is the most impressive peak in the area and would be a good one to do in late spring.

Anyway, I couldn’t pick out Boreas Mountain within the cluster of peaks around Michigan Creek campground, which goes to show how little I knew the area.  The road up to Michigan Creek Campground is dirt but is in great shape and passable by any car.  We parked maybe a half mile or more from the entrance to the campground for fear that a lot of the snow on the road would convert the road into a mudway.  As I was using the little boys room in the middle of the woods before we started hiking, I heard the howls of a pack of coyotes.  It sounded like they were really close.  It was pretty neat and eerie hearing them.  One started up, then the others all joined in in unison.  Too bad I didn’t have my portable recorder.

We began hiking around 7:30, I think, and passed the Michigan Creek Campground entrance after several minutes.  We continued up the road for quite a while to another road that branched off to the left from the main road.  This road was closed to vehicles by a gate.  We continued down the road for a few more minutes then suddenly broke off into the woods and began heading up the drainage to the peak.  The leader of this trip knew the route very well.  He took us directly there without any problems.

The day was nice although there were some strange clouds hovering to the east of us.  This didn’t move all day.
 
This trip was only denoted as a 7 mile trip in the schedule, but it turned out to be about an 11 mile hike.   After leaving the road, we bushwacked for a couple of miles before breaking out of treeline.  Actually, there was no trail at all during the whole trip.  Of course, we saw no other parties.  Our route took us through two large open areas and long stretches of evergreens as we headed up the broad ridge north of Antelope Gulch (see map).  We paused once as we were approaching treeline to check the map.

This trip consisted of 8 people, 5 of whom were leaders.  The leader of the trip lead all the time except for one short stretch below treeline.  This other leader got us off track pretty quick and started leading us down into French Gulch.  I never understand how these people can so easily get lost.  Anyway, the leader recognized this pretty quickly (as did I) and put the other leader back on track.  Still, this was a good group because we took only a few breaks and set a pretty fast pace.  After breaking out of treeline, I led the group up a large shoulder to a broad ridgetop.  From here, I took the picture of Bald Mountain.
 
Directly in front of us, was a large subpeak of the Boreas Mountain massif.  We ended up traversing around the lefthand side of this large bump.  As we traversed, we got our first views of Grays, Torreys, Bierstadt, and Evans.  I was surprised how different they looked from this vantage point.  It was kind of neat actually; I’ve seen Grays and Torreys from just about every angle now.  This part of the traverse was also completely through snow.  The wind had died down and the sun had come out. It got really hot really quick being in the snow.  The snow, when mixed with bright sun and no wind, becomes an over.  It’s still very important to keep covered up to protect yourself from the intense untraviolet rays at these elevations.

After traversing past the ridge point, we headed for a broad saddle right in front of Boreas Mountain. 

Here’s a picture of me at the saddle with the huge hulk of Boreas Mountain behind me.  At this point I hadn’t taken too many pictures, but I started taking a lot!  There were all sorts of neat views from this saddle.  To the southwest, we got our first views of Mount Silverheels.  To the north and east, there were great views of Bald, Guyot, and peaks around Grays and Torreys.  I started getting behind the group because I was taking so many pictures.  I took a nice panoramic view ranging from north to east.

From the saddle, we dipped down into a basin directly in front of the peak then began heading straight up.
 
In the picture, you can see the group heading straight up the peak.  Even though it looks steep and far away, it isn’t.  Distances and angles are always skewed when you’re looking at objects of this size.  You can make out some other climbers far in the background.   The final climb up this peak was really uneventful.  It was basically your average slog up snow and talus slopes.

The summit is very long and consists of two long high points.  The summit was very similar to that of Mount Belford’s.  The summit was very broad and flat but there was also an extra pile of talus that appeared artificial that was the true summit.  From where we emerged on the summit, we realized that the actual high point was about 200 yards to the south on the second summit.   So, naturally, we strolled over there.  On this summit was a typical summit shelter wall built out of talus blocks.
 
Here’s a picture of me kneeling on the shelter wall.  You can see that the shelter is pretty much full of snow so it didn’t serve much purpose.  As usual, the summit was rather windy.   Again, I was dressed pretty lightly for this trip – no long underwear on my legs and no fleece under my jacket – so it was kind of chilly for me on the summit.  That didn’t stop me from taking my biggest panorama to date though.  The panorama was about 270 degrees ranging from south to east.   Starting at the south, southwest view, you see Mount Silverheels, then working northward you see the Mosquito Range (Mounts Bross and Lincoln), then the Ten Mile Range (Quandry Peak is the prominent pointed peak – quite a different view from this perspective), then Breckenridge ski area, then the Gore Range in the far distance, then the northern peaks of the South Park area, and finally the other Front Range ranges where you can see Grays, Torreys, Bierstadt, and Evans.

After taking this picture, I rejoined the group just below the summit on the east side of the mountain whiched served as adequate protection against the wind.  After a bite to eat, we began our long but enjoyable slog back down to the cars.

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.