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.

From Loveland Pass

On the weekend of the 19th and 20th of June, I went to visit with the Stahls who were staying the week in Vail.   We had an absolute fabulous time – lots of joking, laughing, and talking while taking in tons of great scenery.  On Sunday, I took them up to the Piney Creek valley and showed them a great spot for hiking and fishing.  Around 2pm the clouds and scattered rain started moving in so turned around.  I decided to leave for home around 4pm.  The weather was pretty crummy everywhere.  It started raining again quite hard as I was ascending Vail Pass.  I had a desire to quickly climb Mount Sniktau, because it had looked so inviting as we were driving out to Vail.  I decided that if the weather was perhaps clearer on the other side of the Continental Divide then I would.  Well, sure enough, there was bits of clearing over the mountain.   Actually, normally I wouldn’t call this clear at all but it was relatively a lot nicer.  Plus, the clouds weren’t thunderheads; they only held rain.  I could deal with rain I said to myself.  I arrived at the top of Loveland Pass around 5:15pm and started hiking around 5:25, quite late for a hike but that was fine with me.  If all went according to plan, I could be at the top in an hour and back down much faster than that.  Plus, I’d made up my mind to just turn around if it was too windy or if I heard thunder.

Actually, I usually bypass the knob by about 20 or 30 feet to the left just to save myself a few feet of effort.  Once you hit the knob or bypass it, the route looks like this .You can see there’s another small knob and a major one in the far distance.  It’s easiest to walk the ridge at this point instead of trying to bybass the little knob.  Plus, you have nice views of Torreys and Grays from here.  Torreys is very prominent and Grays peaks just to the right of the summit.

The final knob in this picture is the last knob before the summit.  You can actually bypass the very top of this knob as well.  There’s some level ground just to the left of the knob.  You can see it in this photograph actually.

Once you’re at this knob, you’re only 15 minutes or so from the summit, even less than that if you’re in good shape and aerobically hiking the mountain.
 
There was virtually no snow to hike over at all on this route and I hiked just off to the left of the snow on the ridge in this picture.  I cruised this part of the hike really fast. I took me maybe 10 minutes to get to the top from here.  I was surprised at how fast I was actually hiking today.

The clouds were very dark and ominous but, for the most part, they were completely harmless. There were some very very dark clouds over the Gore Range and the TenMile Range but it didn’t seem that they were moving at all.   Plus, there was virtually no wind up here.  It was very quiet and pleasant.   The windiest section was actually on a short stretch above Loveland Pass.   That’s strange because it’s usually very windy along this ridge.  Not so this afternoon so I took off my glasses and hood and enjoyed the fresh breeze and my new 20/15 eyesight!
 
I arrived on the summit in record time – 57 minutes.  I only stopped a few times to take pictures and catch my breath when I was going too fast.  There was, of course, not a soul on the summit, as most people don’t hike late in the afternoon.  In my experience though, springtime is a great time for afternoon hikes.  Summertime is a different story though!

Anyway, I spent about 10 minutes on the summit taking pictures.  I even found the register and signed it.  I think this was the first time I’d signed the register because every other time I’d been here had been much earlier in the spring when there was much more snow and the register was buried.

As I started heading down the mountain, I heard some faint distant thunder.  Good timing.  I was able to make it down the mountain very fast – about 25 or 30 minutes.   I jogged a lot of it and that saved a lot of time.  I also paused to take more pictures, of course.  The lower picture is a shot northward towards The Citadel and Pettingell Peak.  It’s quite a lovely sight – the clouds, the setting sun, and the soft grass.  I actually sat down here for a quick break and just took in the scenery.   Very nice and relaxing.

From Monte Cristo Road.

Fletcher is a centennial peak (one of the 100 highest in Colorado) located due west of Quandry Peak in the TenMile Range.  It’s separated from Wheeler Mountain to the south and Atlantic Peak to the north by a impressive serrated ridge.  We began this hike from the Monte Cristo Road snow closure, which was very near to the turnoff to the trailhead of Quandry Peak.  So, we had a fairly long trek up to the Monte Cristo resevoir.  However, the road is very good and we were able to zoom up the road to the resevoir.  This was another trip with the CMC.

This picture is a view of the valley looking towards Monte Cristo Resevoir and Wheeler Mountain.  In the right of the picture, you can see the road we hiked up.  Along the road we passed some cars that apparently had been there since the first winter snows came; they were completely buried except for parts of the roof.
 
Upon reaching the resevoir, we took one of our numerous, long, classic CMC breaks then traversed along the slopes north of the resevoir.  There’s a decent trail here although it was sometimes hard to see because of the snow and talus.  After a few minutes, we could see the small ridge that led northwestwardly up to a large basin beneath Fletcher Mountain.  I felt really good the whole time during this trip and getting up to the ridge was really easy.

From about halfway up the ridge, we could finally see Fletcher Mountain in the far distance.

We had to hike the length of Quandry Peak on it’s south side.  We had great veiws of it the whole time.

Here’s a picture of the group at the knob at the top of the initial ridge taking another break.  In the distance is the long ridge that leads to North Star Mountain, which is southwest of Quandry Peak.  It was a pleasure to hike along this ridge towards the base of Fletcher Mountain.  The ridge was very wide and we had outstanding views of the ridge between Wheeler and Fletcher Mountains.

The ridge was probably around a mile long and led to a huge flat basin underneath the peak.  From this basin, Quandry Peak looks sustantially different from it’s usual mundane appearance.   It’s also quite a different climb from the west side.  The standard route is the east side and is very easy.
 
Here’s a view of Fletcher Mountain below the large basin southeast of the peak.  From the basin, the leader asked me and two other guys, Ken and Kirk, to lead the route up the peak.  I started out first then was told to take out my ice axe instead of using ski poles.   This was annoying example of how the leader micromanaged the trip.  I can understand that he felt he had a responsibility to protect everyone but still, it was kind of ridiculous to continually correct our route choices.  That’s what I don’t like about these types of leaders.  He also chose the initial route even though the three of use were leading.  He made us hike directly up the lower face instead of heading for the right-hand ridge.  The ridge is/was a much safer and easier option.  Go figure.

Anyway, everyone passed me as I secured my ski poles.  When I finally was ready, I headed back up and was able to catch up and pass everyone else pretty quickly to get back with my friends in the front.  I took this picture of the group hiking up with Quandry Peak in the background.  At this point we were about 100 feet below the summit.  Ken was leading.  When we finally hit the ridge, we noticed how steep it was over the north side.  Ahead of us, the ridge converted to a thin snow ridge that was fairly steep on both sides.  Ken offered for me to lead and I took over.   Instead of traversing underneath the steep slope, I headed up and straddled the ridge all the way to the summit.

This route, in my opinion, was much safer than traversing beneath a steep snow slope.  For one thing, avalanche danger is much lower, but more importantly it’s easier to straddle a ridge (or at least hike along within a foot or less of the ridge) than it is to traverse a steep slope.  You’re more likely to slip on a slope.  Also, if you indeed slip here, you’ll most likely fall directly on to the ridge, which you can use to hold your fall.  It’s much harder to stop your fall on a slope.  This ridge made the leader really nervous though.
 
Here’s a photo of the final ridge leading to the summit.  I turned around real quick and snapped this picture.  The leader (in the red jacket in the rear) nearly freaked out when the group stopped.  He was getting really annoyed with me.  After taking the picture, I turned around and finished the 15 or 20 feet to the summit.  When the leader got to the top, he began sarcastically criticizing the route I had chosen.   Anyway, the leader was quite rude actually but I found out from the other hikers that he was just like that.  From that moment on, I decided that I would just ignore him and never hike with him again.  He also acted totally terrified by that route.  Apparently, he was not very experienced.  Everyone else seemed pretty excited about the final 50 feet of the route and enjoyed it.

The route doesn’t look to scary in this photo. It indeed looked more extreme from the bottom.  The only thing bad that I can see in this photo is that everyone is too close together, perhaps putting too much stress on the ridge in one place.  I was way up in front and didn’t really have any control over this.  This is really not that big a deal, but if there’s any criticism, I suppose that would be it.  Again, it felt exposed but it was safe.  It would be pretty hard to slip there.   You just have to be careful of your footing and securely plant your ice axe as you move. 
 
Here’s a picture of Kirk and I on the top. In the background is Mounts Lincoln and Bross. We had great views from here in every direction.  After staying on the summit for about fifteen minutes, we headed back down the opposite side of the mountain to avoid the “Ridge of Death”.  I would have preferred that we headed back that way because the other side was a slog down talus. 

I was ready to head back down the mountain though because I was dressed very light for this trip and was starting to shiver a bit.   I had no long underwear on and only had my GoreTex pants over my legs.   Underneath my GoreTex jacket, I had a midweight bergelene top on with a polypropelene tee-shirt on top of that.  It was a good choice though because, even though it felt a bit nippy from time to time, I never got too hot.

After taking about 5 other breaks (arrrr!), we finally made it back to the cars.   In spite of the sorry leadership, I really enjoyed this trip.
 

From Mayflower Gulch

This winter trip was with the Colorado Mountain Club.  Originally, the trip was to include Crystal Peak as well but that would have certainly been a stretch to complete.  The weather for this trip was quite different from one week ago when I climbed Jacque Peak with the CMC.  That week was sunny and warm all day and not much snow had fallen.  This morning, however, was very cold and overcast.  Plenty of snow had fallen as well.  The trip began from the Mayflower Gulch trailhead which is practically across the street from the trailhead for Jacque Peak.  Mayflower Gulch is a very pretty area with a alpine backdrop of the serrated ridge between Atlantic and Fletcher mountains. 

We began hiking around 7:45 am and made our way among the tall evergreen trees that were covered in snow.  After a few minutes, we turned due north and crossed Mayflower Gulch to the Pacific Creek drainage where we would start the climb of the long ridge to Atlantic Peak.
 
After calling back a group of lemmings who started hiking in the wrong direction, we turned eastward and began climbing the ridge. Here’s a picture of one of the lower sections of the ridge.  The mound in the background is one fo the many false summits on this ridge.  At this point, the sun shone through from time to time to warm us up but that never lasted for more than a minute.  The weather improved as the day progressed but it was still cold and overcast. Here’s a picture of the upper ridge.  You can see the shadows being cast by the bright sun illuminating the clouds to the right.
 
Finally, we arrived at the top of Atlantic Peak.  Most of the group didn’t stop at all, but four of us hiked through the deep snow to the other end of the large summit where the cairn was.  Was this the true summit?  I don’t know.   It seemed like the snow had evened out any of the bumps that defined the true summit.  The top of Atlantic was very cold and windy.  I paused only for a brief moment for this picture with the ridge to Fletcher Mountain in the background.   Quandry Peak is out of view to the left in this picture.  After taking this picture, we bounded down the deep snow to the saddle between Pacific and Atlantic Peaks.   We took a brief rest period here then began another march to the top of our second peak.

Here’s a shot of Pacific Peak from the ridge of Atlantic Peak.  The hike to Pacific wasn’t too bad.  The saddle was only about 500 feet below the summit.  The summit of Pacific was much smaller than Atlantic’s.  The northside is essentially a sheer cliff.  There’s a thin ridge leading down to Crystal Peak.  Eventually, this ridge widens out quite a bit.  The weather was much nicer on top of Pacific Peak.  All of the clouds had cleared and we basked in the sunshine for a moment as we pondered our next move.  I abstained from the vote but the consensus was to turn around now instead of attempting Crystal Peak.  This was probably the right decision.  Many people were tired already.  I know that I would have been totally fatigued if we had continued on to Crystal Peak.  So, we dropped back down to the saddle then hiked steeply down the talus field into the large cirque beneath the two peaks.  This was the worst part of the trip.  At one point the snow turned from soft to hard in a single footstep and my feet slipped out from under me.  I picked up speed really fast. Fortunately, I had my ice axe with me and was successfully able to self-arrest my fall.  There was no life endangerment here, but I would have ended up sliding into some rocks and would have been bruised up at best.   After arriving at the base of the peaks, we put our snowshoes back on and hiked back to the Pacific Creek drainage.
 
The sun was out in full force now and we all warmed back up quickly.   I stripped back down to my fleece.  Mayflower Gulch is really pretty in the bright sun.  I took this picture (left) of Fletcher Mountain as we left the Pacific Creek drainage and arrived back in the Gulch. From here, it was only a 15 or 20 minute hike back to the cars at the trailhead.  I was very pleased to get these two centential peaks under my belt.

From Tucker Gulch

Jacque Peak was my first winter climb of 1999. I don’t know if I should count this as a winter trip because the weather was so fabulous. Saturday, February 13th, was perfectly clear, very still, sunny, and warm. This was by far the best weather I’ve had on a winter trip. I’ve always had some combination of bitter cold, wind, and clouds. Not on this day. It was really lucky too because Jacque Peak has one of the best views in the state. It stands alone north of the Gore Range and west of the Ten Mile Range and has unobstructed views in every direction.

This trip was with the Colorado Mountain Club. The only time I go on trips with the club is during the winter for safety reasons. I normally enjoy planning and leading my own hikes. We arrived at the trailhead around 8:45 and put our snowshoes on and headed up.
 
The prominent pointed peak is Pacific Peak.We had a fairly large group of eleven people. We didn’t head up Tucker Gulch, but rather a smaller gulch north of Tucker that lead directly to Tucker Mountain. Tucker Mountain borders the back bowls of Copper Mountain Ski Area. There’s a shelter up here that serves as a good place to take a break. We moved at a slow pace up the gulch to Tucker Mountain and arrived there at around noon. At this pace, I didn’t think we’d have time to make it to the top. However, we really picked up the pace for the rest of the trip and pretty much hiked non-stop to the summit.
 
Here’s the view of Jacque Peak from the summit of Tucker Mountain. Our route ascended the lefthand ridge in the picture. From the shelter, the ridge looked really steep but I realized that we were viewing it on end and in reality, it was quite easy. We hiked up and down along the summits of Tucker Mountain until we got below Jacque Peak. Then we headed up the rocky slopes to the ridge.

Here I am standing on the wide ridge. As you can see, the day was perfect. I didn’t even have to cover my head up until we got on the summit. The summit indeed was a rather chilly place. Some people in our group started getting cold toes. Anyway, the ridge was easy to ascend. At one point the wind had formed a nice barn-roof effect on the ridge that we had to walk along. There was one false summit unfortunately, but the true summit lay only a couple of hundred feet beyond it.
 
Here’s our group on the summit. We had perfect views. To the north was the Gore Range. To the east, we had perfect and up-close views of the Ten Mile Range. To the south and west lay the long chain of the Sawatch Range.  We stayed on top for about 30 minutes then headed back down. We were able to glissade down the gulch from Tucker Mountain. It wasn’t the best glissade but it saved us some time. On the way down, I didn’t bother putting on my snowshoes again. I just followed a packed snowmobile trail back to the cars.

From 4th of July Trailhead

I’d been wanting to do North and South Arapaho Peaks for a while because I heard that they both featured spectacular views and an exciting ridge traverse from one to the other. Both of these rumors turned out to be true. The view from the top, while awesome, is not as impressive as the two peaks themselves from a lower vantage point on “Old Baldy”, a nearby thirteener. From here, the view is unobstructed: on the left you have the sharp pyramid of South Arapaho, and working right you see the jagged ridge and then finally the huge bulky summit of North Arapaho. Between these two, the gigantic Arapaho Glacier is in complete view. This is one of the most alpine views in Colorado. The view certainly rivals, and I think exceeds, the grandeur of the view of Longs and Meeker from Chasm Lake. This is a picture of South Arapaho Peak from the saddle between “Old Baldy” and South Arapaho. While the peak looks difficult, the route is quite easy. We headed up the lefthand ridge in the photo. A few times we looked over the edge of the ridge and had an unobstructed 1000 foot view of the glacier. If you’re afraid of heights, you can still get to the summit of South Arapaho without any exposure at all.

I hiked these peaks with two co-workers: Brian Towell and Bill Snodgrass. Brian and I were both big fans of the Indian Peaks. This was Bill’s first trip ever to the Indian Peaks though he had climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners. Bill and I were to meet Brian at the trailhead. Brian, however, was apparently late so we started without him. We decided to make a detour immediately and headed due north and steeply ascended to the wide grassy ridge that led to “Old Baldy” and to South Arapaho.

After finally arriving at “Old Baldy” and taking pictures, we headed for the top of South Arapaho. On top, we met Brian who had hiked up with his two dogs via the 4th of July mine. The three of us set off for North Arapaho. Click here for an account of the ridge traverse and a panoramic picture. I only made this separate because the panorama, while awesome, is a relatively big file (135K). Anyway, after a few challenges on the ridge, we scrambled up to the summit of North Arapaho through a little gully. The summit is flat and features a monstrous cairn.

Here’s a picture of Bill and I on the summit of North Arapaho. Bill is standing on the huge cairn. We were a little worried about the storm you see behind us while we were on the ridge. We felt a few raindrops and realized that North Arapaho would be a very bad place to be during a storm because there’s only one way to retreat and that’s back over the ridge and on to South Arapaho. We were pretty sure that the storm was only packing rain and no lightning so we continued on. When we arrived at the summit, we noticed that the storm was going to bypass us completly…it was heading for South Arapaho. The storm frightened everyone else off the ridge and we had the summit to ourselves.

Here is a picture of Brian on the summit of North Arapaho with South Arapaho and the top of the Arapaho Glacier in the distance. We took pictures, explored around, and Bill even shot some video with his camera that he had hauled up. After staying on the summit for about 30 minutes, we headed back down the ridge in clearer weather. After descending South Arapaho we went back down the standard route which wended its way down to the 4th of July Mine. When we arrived at the mine, another little rainstorm moved in and showered us a bit. And again, after about 30 minutes, the clouds had completely cleared out and there was sun and blue skies.

We were all pretty tired after this long day but the trip had been very successful. Hopefully, we’ll be headed out again for more peaks in the Indian Peaks. Here’s a nice sunset shot of the southern part of the Indian Peaks. North and South Arapaho are on the lefthand side.

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