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Author: Laura M Clark
Laura has summited over 500 peaks above 13,000' solo, including being the first woman to solo summit all of the Colorado 14ers, as well as the centennials. After each hike, she writes trip reports for each one and publishes them on her blog, which is read by fans all over the world. Author of Wild Wanderer: Summiting Colorado’s 200 Highest Peaks, which is available to purchase on Amazon.
It’s officially High School Football season which means late Thursday/Friday night games. Luckily for me my daughter performs at half time and can drive herself home so I was able to get in 2 hours of sleep before waking up at midnight to drive to the trailhead.
And what a drive it was! This is my 6th or 7th time at the South Colony Lakes Trailhead, and the last 3 miles were the worst I’ve ever seen them. The drainpipe was actually one of the easier parts. Because of the rough road I drove a little slower than I normally would and wasn’t on the trail until 2:30am. (Sorry, these pictures are of the easier areas, as I needed both hands on the wheel to navigate the tougher ones).
One side of the parking lot was completely full: I was the first to park on the opposite side.
I followed the South Colony Lakes trail, which starts at the west end of the parking area
There’s a register to sign and then immediately I crossed a bridge and headed left (west) along an old 4WD road that’s no longer maintained.
There were a few mud puddles here and some running water, but nothing that actually got my boots wet.
After hiking for 2.6 miles I came to this junction and went right to follow the Humboldt Peak / South Colony Trail.
Here the road ends and it actually becomes a trail, crossing a few minor bridges and a small boulder area
before entering the South Colony Lakes Basin. Here the willows were overgrown and made the trail ‘fun’ to follow at night (spiderwebs).
In the daylight it’s easy to see where you’re headed: Follow the well defined Humboldt Trail to the saddle of PT 13,290 and Humboldt
Making it to the saddle was straightforward, but here the trail ended. I turned west (left)and continued on towards point 13,290
I followed the ridge to the top of the point
From here you can see the rest of the route up to “Obstruction Peak”, but I couldn’t because it was still dark
This ridge is NOT fun to cross in the dark. I wasn’t able to see much of what was ahead of me, which made route finding tricky. I also couldn’t tell how much exposure there was, which was positive at times. I mentally wished for my helmet and just stuck to the ridge, doing my best to anticipate the proper route and backtracking and trying again when necessary. On my way back I could clearly see a class 2+ path, but in the dark it was slow going.
Here’s the ridge
After crossing the ridge I crossed a relatively flat area known as “Bears Playground” and headed northwest up towards “Obstruction Peak” first over tundra and then rocky areas
It was actually difficult to tell exactly where the summit of “Obstruction Peak” was so I decided to make it to the ridge early and just walk across the entire ridge. I’m pretty sure the true summit is at the most westerly point.
I summited at 6:45am
“Obstruction Peak”:
As I turned and looked east I could see the sunrise
From the summit of “Obstruction Peak” the path to “Kitty Kat Carson” and “Colombia Point” was clear
I hiked down “Obstruction Peak” towards “Kitty Kat Carson”. The ridge down was rocky but stable
Once at the saddle “Kitty Kat Carson” looked imposing, but wasn’t too much of a challenge. There were a lot of cairns here, especially towards the top, which made them useless. I stayed to the right for most of the ridge, and then headed left to summit
The terrain here was classic Crestone: lots of steep, grippy rock
I summited “Kitty Kat Carson” at 7:28am
“Kitty Kat Carson”:
It took me less than 10 minutes to traverse from “Kitty Kat Carson” over to Columbia Point, losing about 50’ in elevation and then regaining it back. This was all class 2+ climbing
I summited Columbia Point at 7:39am
Columbia Point:
There’s a plaque at the summit commemorating the crew of the shuttle Columbia
Here’s looking back on “Kitty Kat Carson”
Time to head back. Here’s the route towards “Kitty Kat Carson”
And down the saddle and back up to “Obstruction Peak”
Once at “Obstruction Peak” I made my way back down Bears Playground and over to the ridge. That had been quite a time in the dark!
I was so glad to be able to see the route in the daylight. I didn’t need to stick to the ridge the entire time, and mainly stuck to the left/north when I wasn’t on top of the ridge. I found this was a rather quick traverse when I could see what was in front of me.
What took longer than I’d remembered was the hike down from Point 13290 and back to the Humboldt Saddle
Here’s the route to the South Colony Lakes area
The hike back was rather uneventful. I saw over a dozen hikers and was reminded how popular the 14er trails are. I stopped and talked to several people intent on Humboldt, and even saw a few friends intent on some of the other 14ers. I was in a rush though: I had to be home by 2pm to take my daughter camping, which meant I had to make it back to the trailhead no later than 11:35am. It was a beautiful day and I wasn’t carrying a full pack so I was able to hike pretty quickly. I made it to the bridge crossing and saw some raspberries.
I decided to try one: it was sour, and unfortunately not as good as the ones from Purgatory, so I only ate one and left the rest for woodland creatures to enjoy. I made it back to the trailhead at 11:30am, making this a 14.5 mile hike with 5304’ in elevation gain in just under 9 hours. The best part (besides making it home at 1:58pm)? No mosquitoes!!!
I did a ton of research before setting out for this hike. It was my goal to link up the Chicago Basin with the Noname Creek Approach via Twin Thumbs Pass. All of my research said it was “doable”, but I hadn’t found a trip report indicating it had ever been done, so I went in kind of expecting to fail. I was trying to eliminate hiking into the Chicago Basin to summit Jupiter and then hiking back out and attempting Jagged Mountain via the Noname Creek Approach. If I could link up the hike via Twin Thumbs Pass I’d be saving about 20 miles and several thousand feet of elevation gain. And it almost worked…
Sleep is for armatures, so I left my house at 8pm after hosting a Girl Scout awards ceremony, arriving at the Purgatory Trailhead at 2:15am. I was on the trail by 2:30am. The first 10 steps hurt. A lot. My pack was wayyyyy too heavy. I’d gone through it multiple times eliminating what wasn’t absolutely necessary and it was still painfully heavy. I’m not sure how much it actually weighed (I was too scared to weigh it) but I’m guessing it was around 45-50lbs. That’s excessive, especially for someone who only weighs 105lbs. But I just couldn’t lose any more weight: I’d already thrown out unnecessary items like a camp stove (it was all peanut butter and beef jerky for me this weekend) a pillow (not needed), a change of clothes, bug repellant, etc. and had switched my “good” backpacking sleeping bag for a lighter weight one. What was weighing me down was all the gear: rope, harness, carabiners, webbing, etc. All that stuff was necessary if I wanted to attempt Jagged this weekend, which I did.
So those first 10 steps hurt and I should have known then to stop and reassess this adventure, but I told myself it would eventually get easier if I just kept moving so I just kept moving. Yep, I kept moving but it didn’t get easier. I gingerly hiked my way down the Purgatory trail towards Cascade Creek, losing elevation the entire way and thinking to myself “hiking down shouldn’t be this difficult”.
The trail follows Cascade Creek southeast towards the Animas River. There’s a bridge here to cross
and a good trail to follow to the Railroad tracks. I crossed the tracks and continued on the Animas River Trail.
The trail is easy to follow, but was overgrown in areas. It follows the Animas River, which I could hear but not see in the dark.
While the trail follows the river it still has numerous small ups and downs in elevation, which I thought were completely unnecessary: I’d rather stay at a steady elevation. The sun started to rise and I made it to the Needleton/Purgatory/Cascade Junction and followed the Needleton Creek Trail to Chicago Basin. Side note: It is not 7 miles to the Purgatory Trailhead. From this point my tracker says it’s 10 miles. A little ways up there’s a trail register and information area. I didn’t sign the trail register because I hadn’t intended on exiting this way.
From this area it’s another 6 miles to the Chicago Basin. This part of the trail follows Needle Creek as it climbs towards the basin. I loved hearing the water rushing past and seeing the waterfalls along the way.
It seemed like it took forever to make it to the basin. I realized I was almost there when I saw the avalanche debris. There really wasn’t very much damage, and luckily there were already clearly established trails as a workaround.
The hike into Chicago Basin is indeed beautiful!
I didn’t see much evidence of mountain goats. I was here last year and they were everywhere. This year I saw a couple, but nowhere near as many as before.
Normally I like to do the hardest peak first, but today the easier peak was my first goal for several reasons: I wanted to get a look at the backside of Jagged to see how much snow there was on route and I wanted to see if there was still snow on Twin Thumbs Pass. I knew I didn’t need all my gear to summit Jupiter so I stashed my pack and just brought the essentials: water, my camera, and some snacks. Oh yeah, snacks. I should probably eat something? I had about 12 almonds and kept them down so I considered it a win.
If you go left at this junction it takes you up to Twin Lakes. If you continue straight it will take you on a well established path towards Jupiter.
The trail crosses Needle Creek and heads west up the hillside
About halfway up the hillside there’s an old mine. I’d already explored this mine the last time I was here so I didn’t feel the need to go inside, but I did see a pack outside, and called in to say hello to whoever was exploring.
I met a man who was really excited about the mine. His hands were white from the walls, and it looked like he’d been having a time. We chatted for a bit: He’s already hiked the Colorado Trail and was now looking for a way back to Durango. He asked me if I knew if the trail “went” and since I’d already done a lot of research on the Johnson Creek/Vallecito trails when planning this trip I knew if he made it to the saddle he could take Columbine pass over. I envied this man his freedom to just explore and not worry about time and wished him luck. I wish I had more time to adventure!
I continued on the trail to treeline, crossed a creek, and here the trail (mostly) stopped. I felt so much better hiking with just the essentials: I felt like I could skip up this mountain!
There were a few cairns and what looked like overgrown social trails but no established trail after the small creek crossing. Here’s the route I took up the side of Jupiter.
It’s much steeper than it looks, but the wildflowers made up for the difficulty.
About halfway up the hillside I started getting worried about the weather. There was a 30% chance of rain today between 2-4pm, and the clouds forming didn’t look good. Luckily the wind was blowing them away from me, but I kept an eye on them just in case. I really, really didn’t want to turn back at this point (but I would have if necessary). I kept looking for the man I’d met, watching for his ascent of Columbine pass, but I never saw him again (even from a distance).
I continued on and came across cairns. There seemed to be several ways around this part. I took the solid line up, the dotted line back down.
I continued up the side of the mountain, aiming for the cairn I could see at the top of that pile of rocks, sure that was the summit (spoiler alert: it wasn’t)
Imagine my surprise when I made it to the top of that pile of rocks, only to see… this
Wait? I thought this was a class 2 hike? That looked like class 3 scrambling to me. I was a little put off I’d left my helmet back with my gear in the basin and a little upset with discovering this had been a false summit, but decided to just go ahead and finish. I took the solid route up, the dotted line down. I felt the dotted line route was indeed class 2+, but the solid route was class 3. There were several ways to summit here, and so many cairns they lost their intended purpose.
I summited Jupiter Mountain at 2pm.
Summit Video:
I’d been hiking for almost 12 hours at this point, but without my full gear for the past 2 hours I was feeling pretty good. I decided to take a look around. Jagged from this side was mostly snow free!
Twin Thumbs pass was obscured by Point 13,472, but it looked mostly clear of snow as well. This was all good news. Now I only had to worry about the north facing sides of the mountains (which hold snow longer).
Time to head back. Here’s the route I took off Jupiter (this also shows Columbine pass in the background)
And back down to treeline
Back at treeline I had a better view of Twin Thumbs pass. It appeared clear. Now it was time to retrieve my gear and head up to Twin Lakes.
I saw my first mountain goat of the day here
I re-crossed Needle Creek and stopped to filter some water. It was a warm day and I was forcing myself to drink. It was making me nauseous, but at least I wasn’t light headed. The cool water felt really good, and I started just drinking it from the filter to save time. After my water bladder was full I went to find my pack. Argh! I wasn’t able to find it! This was not good. I was sure I’d left it by the sign? After about 5 minutes of searching I realized there were two similar signs and I was at the wrong one. I made my way about 10 yards further and was relieved to find my pack where I’d left it, and as an added bonus, no goat/marmot damage to be seen. The downside? There were so many mosquitoes here! I’d wanted to rest for a bit, but the mosquitoes wouldn’t quit, so I decided to just get going.
My pack was on the ground so I sat down to put it on and groaned as I leaned to the side to stand up. That pack was heavy!!! Time to trudge up to Twin Lakes. Luckily this is a very well marked trail.
About halfway up I saw my second set of goats for the day. They were directly on the trail and looked me straight in the eye as I got close. I was wondering how we would pass each other politely when one of them just veered off the path a little to the left, went around me, and then hooked back up with the trail. They must be used to this…
From this angle Jupiter looks imposing
As I continued on I saw a sign that said “No camping beyond this point: Including Twin Lakes Basin”. Well shoot. There went my “Plan B” of sleeping at Twin Lakes if I couldn’t make it over the pass. Oh well, it looked like the path was clear, so it shouldn’t matter anyway.
I made it to the Twin Lakes area and had a great view of my intended route. There looked to be a little snow, but nothing I couldn’t handle
Also, there’s hidden snow here, more than anticipated
No worries though: I just put on my crampons, tested the snow for stability, and easily traversed over to the final gully before Twin Thumbs pass. I took the solid route up, and the dotted route down (the dotted route is the better route).
There were no cairns or paths or footprints here, or anything indicating anyone had used this route in the past. I was huffing and puffing by this point but really wanted to just get over the pass. When I made it to the top this is what I saw
Ok, this looks good! I could see where I wanted to be and the path I wanted to take to get there.
Right now I was pumped! I probably had 2 hours left of daylight and a clear visual of where I wanted to be. And it was all downhill. I began my descent through a class 4 chimney (not as easy as it sounds with a full pack on my back. Also, this move wouldn’t have been necessary had I taken the dotted line route.) I was immediately taken aback by how steep the scree here was.
It quickly became apparent the route up to Ruby Basin (should I need to use it) was much steeper than it looked on a topo map.
This is where my trouble began. I made it to the first patch of snow and thought it would be similar to the snow I’d encountered in the Twin Lakes area. I stepped on it and promptly sank up to my waist. My feet however were still dangling in the air beneath the snow. This was not good. It wasn’t lost on me I’d narrowly avoided breaking a leg. My large pack is what had caught me and kept me from sinking further. It took some time but I was able to get myself out of the hole I’d fallen into.
A bit shaky now I stood where I was and considered my options. I probed the snow a bit with my trekking pole and realized there was a layer of snow a couple of inches thick over the rocky ground. This layer broke easily (obviously) and I did not feel comfortable traversing on it, even with crampons. I looked for a clear line of scree/rocks to traverse to get me where I wanted to go and just couldn’t make out a snow free path.
I could continue to descend and look for a snow free path, but I gave finding one a low probability since the areas I couldn’t see were the steeper parts of the route. It looked like no matter what I was going to have to cross snow. The sun had already gone down behind the mountains and I figured I had about an hour of daylight left. There was nowhere to camp on this side of the mountain.
I had two options: either continue on and hope to find an area without snow I could cross or to turn around and head back. The choice was obvious. I wept a few silent tears, turned around, and started my ascent back up and over Twin Thumbs Pass: making it to Noname creek was optional, making it back to my truck was mandatory. Here’s the path I took back up to the pass. The dotted line is the path I took down. I’d recommend the solid line.
Ok, so I turned to head back to the pass but my shoes immediately slipped as if I were wearing ice skates. This wasn’t good. The scree here was terrible for an ascent. I hadn’t brought along my microspikes (to save weight) but I did have my crampons, so I took those out, strapped them on, and wouldn’t you know it? Better than microspikes! Sure, I was ruining the crampons, but at this point the benefits outweighed the risks.
I knew I was racing against the clock: the sun was rapidly setting and I needed all the daylight I could get. I found an unexpected boost of adrenaline and booked it up to the pass. I was shocked at how quickly I moved, and actually entertained the idea of hiking all the way back to Needleton tonight and attempting Jagged in the morning.
I made it up and over the pass and kept my crampons on until I made it past the snow near Twin Lakes. Here I stopped to take off my crampons and at this point the adrenaline stopped and exhaustion took over. I took off my crampons but was too tired to take off my pack and put them away so I carried them in my left hand. This worked well until it got too dark to see and I needed to carry a flashlight (I’m not a fan of headlamps).
I was stumbling in the dark. Stumbling because at this point I was exhausted and also because I’d completely ruined my hiking boots: they had holes in them the size of quarters and the tread was completely gone. That pass had been more brutal than I’d anticipated. Every few steps I’d slide due to lack of traction and catch myself. One time I didn’t catch myself quick enough and I landed on my shoulder in a bunch of willows. Ouch. That was it; I needed to stop and set up camp. Now. Gone were my fantasies of setting up camp at Needleton, or even in Chicago Basin for that matter.
But I’m a rule follower and I’d seen the sign. I wasn’t allowed to camp here, and I knew it. So I kept on. It seemed like I’d hiked for miles before I finally made it to the “no camping past here” sign, and when I did I dropped all my gear and haphazardly set up my tent directly in front of it. I did a terrible job: I couldn’t see in the dark and honestly I was too tired to care what I was doing. It took me twice as long as it should have to set up and I did so directly beside the trail. Dumb move, and I knew it, but I didn’t care. I needed to rest. Oh, and eat. So far all I’d had were a few almonds and I knew I needed more calories. I opened my bear sack and had tons of options: beef jerky, tuna, almonds, peanut butter. I chose dried mangoes. Not the most caloric but it was what my body was craving. I only wished I’d brought more.
I fell asleep around 10:30pm and woke up every half hour after midnight. You see, I was camped directly next to the trail, so every set of early morning hikers intent on Eolus, Windom, and Sunlight passed right by me. As they did so they all directed their flashlights at my tent. What they most likely didn’t realize is that when you shine a light on a tent it doesn’t allow you to see inside of it, but it does brightly illuminate the inside of the tent. So every 30 minutes or so it was like someone turned on a light inside my tent. My fault for so many reasons I know, but I was too tired to care. And cold. It had been a bad idea to swap my good sleeping bag for a lighter weight one.
In the middle of the night I could hear a goat beside my tent. It was occupying itself with the bandana I’d left outside. I could actually hear him a foot or so from my head, and mentally visualized him picking up the bandana with his teeth and swishing it from side to side.
I left my tent at daylight. My bandana was now separated from my trekking pole but lying inches from where I’d been in my tent. Apparently the goat didn’t want the souvenir. I wasn’t hungry but forced myself to eat a packet of tuna and quickly packed up my gear. Taking down the tent was the worst: my fingers were frozen stiff, despite it being about 40* the night before. My whole body ached from yesterday. I wasn’t sure I was going to be very efficient today, and laughed at myself for thinking last night I could even attempt Jagged today. I was honestly considering camping at Needleton and making the rest of the journey tomorrow.
It was Saturday morning but I didn’t pass many people as I exited the basin. I hurt all over, but especially my shoulders, and specifically my right shoulder. I was worried I’d broken my clavicle when I’d fallen into the willows yesterday. Every hundred feet or so I had to stop and lean over to take the weight off my shoulders for a bit. I tried re-adjusting my straps to distribute the weight more evenly but that wasn’t helping. When I made it to the bridge 2 miles from the Needleton junction I stopped and took off my pack. I realized one of the upper straps had come unbuttoned and fixed it. This seemed to help a bit, but I was still worried about my shoulder. It was red and sore and there was an unfortunate bump right on the collarbone. It wasn’t lost on me I’d carried most of this gear for nothing…
I’d rested for a bit and decided that was enough for today and was on my way. I met a trail runner who stopped to talk for a bit. “Isn’t Chicago Basin as close to heaven on Earth as you can get?” she asked. I agreed, but mentally thought Purgatory was a more apt name, and most likely why Chicago Basin felt like heaven. I really thought she was running to the junction and back but I never saw her again (and she should have caught back up with me if she were doing so).
I was bummed. The weather was perfect, which meant I was wasting a perfect day not summiting something. And I hurt. I was sore and each step hurt more than the last. My shoes were trashed and I’d carried 30 extra pounds of unnecessary gear for dozens of miles and elevation gain for naught except conditioning. Suddenly Sherpas made sense. By the time I made it to the Animas River I was done feeling sorry for myself and instead decided to focus on the positive: I’d been here three times but never hiked the trial in the daylight. I was going to enjoy the view of the river and the shade and the occasional view of the train passing by
I was actually making good time and made it to the railroad crossing around lunchtime.
I’d made a deal with myself here I’d take off my pack for a long time (at least 15 minutes) and have lunch and soak my feet in the river. The mosquitoes had other plans however. Eventually I figured out they came in small swarms and if I killed all 12-15 of them I’d have a solid 2-3 minutes before the next swarm arrived. On the positive side the water was cool and it felt good to sit for a bit.
Animas River:
Lunch was a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter. I strapped on my gear and got ready for the hardest part of the hike: the last 4 miles and several thousand feet of elevation gain. I headed northwest and hugged the side of the mountain
I was pleasantly surprised to realize this trail is mostly in the shade. I was also surprised to realize just how closely this trail comes to Cascade Creek. Hiking this at night I’d always assumed the creek was down much further from the trail than it actually is.
So the shade was nice but the elevation gain was exhausting! I kept gaining and then losing elevation for what seemed like no purpose whatsoever. Why couldn’t the trail just gain steadily in elevation? It was disheartening to gain a couple hundred feet just to lose it again.
There were raspberries on this trail, and while I’m not fond of raspberries these were by far the best I’ve ever had. I couldn’t collect them fast enough (sorry woodland creatures that would have benefited from them, but they were delicious).
This meadow looks totally different in the daylight
The last quarter mile was the worst of the entire hike for several reasons: This part was a steep uphill climb, the sun came out again from behind the clouds, I was tired, my pack was heavy, and I ran out of water just as it began. This last quarter mile took me half an hour to complete (which is very, very slow for me).
Last time I was here I’d hiked Pigeon and Turret’s 39 miles in a day and I’d had hallucinations. This time I realized I’d gladly hallucinate again if it meant not being in this much physical pain from carrying such a heavy load. The only redeeming factor to the weight was I’d used every piece of equipment I’d brought (except the climbing gear, but that was necessary if I’d intended to climb). The physical pain was terrible, and I wondered to myself how long it would take me to forget the torture I’d put myself through over the past two days. Hopefully less than two weeks because I totally plan on doing this again. Soon.
I made it back to my truck at 2:30pm, making this a 41.5 mile hike with 11,098’ in elevation gain in 37 hours.
But my adventure wasn’t over yet. I limped back to my truck and set my pack on my tailgate. I unlocked my truck and downed an entire 2 quart bottle of cranberry juice in-between huge gulps of air. It was still early enough to make today productive, so I decided to drive to a Subway, get dinner, and then sit in my truck and figure out what to do next. A nap was definitely in the plan.
Did you know it’s difficult to find a place to sleep in your car in Durango? Seriously. Every parking lot I entered had “no camping” signs, and many even had “no sleeping in your car” signs. So I drove to a park on the edge of town, thinking this would be a good place to rest for a while. I got out my list of peaks I want to attempt in the next few months and did some calculations. None of them were close enough to drive to tonight to make them worth summiting tomorrow. Drat. It looked like tomorrow was shot as well. Which was probably for the best seeing as how I couldn’t move at the moment, but I was still disappointed.
It was too hot to sleep in my truck without the windows open and there were a surprising number of children screaming at the park as if being there itself were pure torture. I gave up on the nap and drove for a few hours until I found a National Forest Trailhead I could park at for the night, avoiding suicidal deer running across the road. This was a fabulous idea and I was able to sleep under the stars.
I woke up as the sun began to rise and drove the rest of the way home. I was itching all over, and when I looked in the mirror I noticed I had so many mosquito bites it looked like I had the chicken pox. Lovely. I randomly picked a CD out of the glove compartment and began singing 9-5 at the top of my lungs along with Dolly, my mood instantly improved. Until I stopped for gas. I slid out of the truck and my legs buckled underneath me. I quickly looked around to make sure no one had noticed me, and then pulled myself back up into my truck, laughing at myself for even thinking I could’ve hiked another peak today. My body needed a few days to rest, and I need to figure out a way to lighten my pack…
I chose this route mainly because I haven’t used the North Lake Creek Trailhead before, and since all the other routes started from trailheads I’ve already used I wanted to try something new. I began at 3am, and when I arrived at the trailhead my truck was the only vehicle in the lot.
The trail begins at the east side of the parking area, heading north-northwest. There had been a recent avalanche in this area but the debris had been cleared off the path and in the dark I couldn’t even tell there had been an avalanche.
After about 1/10 of a mile I turned right at this boulder.
There is no distinct trail here, but if you continue northeast you’ll eventually run into what could have been a trail at one time (or a dried up creek bed).
This led me to a creek crossing that was just deep enough to make it necessary for me to take off my shoes.
There was another crossing just after this one, but it was small and easy to cross. From here I followed an overgrown 4WD dirt road switchbacking up the mountainside.
Curiously there was an old outhouse right alongside the trail, which looked useable.
The 4WD road led to a smaller trail that led to a bunch of dilapidated cabins (I’m guessing there were 3?) and here is where the trail ended.
From here the goal is to head down the hillside that’s behind this cabin (a few dozen yards), cross the creek, and continue west.
However, I was doing this in the dark on my way in and it proved to be more difficult that it sounds, especially the creek crossing. I was unable to find a crossing in the dark due to avalanche debris in all the wrong places, so I once again sat down, took off my shoes, put on my sandals, and crossed the creek. On my way back I noticed snow bridges that were no longer usable, but also a few areas to cross on the rocks.
This part of the hike was actually a challenge in the dark, but simple in the daylight. There was no defined trail here, but many game/social trails. I tried to follow a trail alongside the creek, but there just wasn’t one that was continuous. What made this difficult in the dark were the overgrown grass and downed trees everywhere.
However, if you just follow the creek (staying about 10 yards to the north of it) it will lead you up and out of Lackawanna Gulch and into an unnamed basin. Every once in a while I’d come across what looked like a proper trail, and even a cairn or two, but the trail always ended (usually at a tree or bush or over a cliffside).
Here’s your path through the basin. You’re aiming for a low ridge at the end of the basin. Once again, there are lots of trails here, but I’m pretty sure they’re all game trails. Also, the willows aren’t that high and the ground was mushy with water. This wasn’t fun to cross in the dark, but at least there weren’t any trees to contend with. In the daylight it was beautiful.
I was fully expecting to see some sort of wildlife, especially with all the hoofprints and game trails I was coming across, but alas, nope. From the north end of the basin I continued east on a low lying ridge towards Casco Peak. Knowing there was a lot of loose rock above me I was aiming for the lowest point on the ridge for my ascent. You can basically gain the ridge from anywhere. I took the solid line up, dotted line down.
Before gaining the ridge I passed through some muddy/wet areas
Here’s what it looked like as I was nearing Casco Peak
I couldn’t see much but the sun was beginning to rise, which was helpful. I could tell the scree was pretty bad in some areas, but it looked like there was talus ahead (which I prefer to scree for an ascent) so I headed for the lowest point in the ridge and began the climb. The talus eventually turned to scree just before the ridge.
Ridge gained I turned right (south) and looked at the rest of the route before me
This wasn’t technical in the slightest. I just stuck to the ridge until I came to the base of the summit. Here it became a short class 2+ trek to the top.
I summited Casco Peak at 7am
Casco:
From here the route to Frasco looked straightforward, but let me tell you, that section north of the saddle (named Fiascol) was a rough and loose ridge
Here’s your first look at the ridge
This is a class 2+ ridge that looks harder than it is. It took careful footing but wasn’t actually technical. I mainly stayed to the top of the ridge, dropping to the left or right as needed. Most of the time if I had to drop off the ridge it didn’t matter if I went left or right: both ways went. Here are some close ups of the route
The final push to the top of Frasco is actually longer than it looks, with a small false summit
I summited Frasco Benchmark at 8:30am
Frasco:
This summit had a summit marker (curious, the unranked peak had a marker, yet neither of the ranked ones did?).
To get to French Mountain from Frasco is straightforward: just follow the ridge (named Friscol). I was surprised at how narrow the beginning part of this traverse was.
I descended 250’ to the Frasco/French saddle, stayed left (north) to avoid a snow patch
and then ascended 320’ to the summit of French Mountain.
I summited French Mountain at 9am
French:
From French, here’s a look back on the route from Casco to Frasco to French
It was a beautiful day so I sat for a bit on the summit, enjoying the views before starting my way back.
Here’s a look at the look to Frasco from French
I mainly stuck to the ridgeline. Around the French/Frasco saddle I saw a ptarmigan and a caterpillar I thought was living pretty high
Here are the areas of avoidable snow on the ascent of Frasco from French
After summiting Frasco a second time it was time to head back towards the Casco/Frasco saddle for my descent. Also, it wasn’t lost on me how much easier the route looked coming up from the Halfmoon Creek area: the scree was almost nonexistent on that side when compared to the Lackawanna Gulch side. The decent along the ridge to the saddle was uneventful.
However, I didn’t go all the way to the saddle: Instead I chose to descend earlier because I liked the scree here better.
Here’s a look at the route back down the basin and towards the creek
The scree here was the kind of scree you want to descend, not ascend. It allows you to scree surf, but doesn’t allow for much traction. I put on my microspikes and headed down the slope, sliding one foot in front of the other. I got a quick video: quick because it wasn’t safe to take a video while scree surfing, but I was basically moving down the hillside with the sliding scree. You can see why this wouldn’t be fun to climb up.
Scree:
Here’s a look back up that scree slope from the bottom
and a look at the route out of the basin
Also, the flowers here didn’t disappoint
As I exited the basin and descended into the Lackawanna Gulch I couldn’t help but think how much easier route finding was in the daylight. I wasn’t concerned as much with where I was because I had visuals that told me I was ‘close enough’ to where I needed to be. I could tell the difference between game trails and actual trails (which is much harder than you’d think in the dark).
The hike back was beautiful! I loved seeing the cabins, flowers, trees, and creeks in the daylight. I took off my hiking boots and put on sandals for the last creek crossing. The cold water felt wonderful on my feet! I decided to keep my on sandals for the rest of the trek to my truck (maybe a quarter mile).
When I made it back to my truck at noon my feet were still wet. This was a 10.5 mile hike with 4549’ in elevation gain completed in 9 hours.
This climb was several years in the making. Knowing if I wanted to complete the Centennials (etc.) I’d need to have rock climbing skills I started going to a rock climbing gym once a week a few years ago. While I enjoyed the climbing and the skills I learned helped immensely with scrambling on class 3+ peaks, I didn’t get a lot of experience with actually setting up/taking down ropes and anchors.
I bought books on mountaineering and watched YouTube videos, but there isn’t a lot of information out there on self-belaying/rappelling (I wonder why?). So I turned to friends I knew who rock climbed and picked their brains. A couple even offered to take me out and show me the ropes. I took them up on their offers, and by mid-summer this year I felt confident enough to go out and try this peak on my own. Please note, I’d already gone out dozens of times and set up anchors and rappelled locally, this was just the first time I was going to do so solo and, well, without anyone to help if needed.
I arrived at the Yankee Boy Basin restroom area at 3:30am and was on the trail by 3:45am.
I put my helmet on before I left the truck, and my pack was curiously not as heavy as I’d anticipated. I considered this my first win of the day. I walked about 1/10 of a mile down the road, realized I’d left my DSLR in the front seat and quickly turned around to retrieve it. I’d been a little worried about my bruised tailbone from last week, and while I have a good 5 inch bruise on my backside my pack wasn’t bothering it as I hiked. Second win of the day!
Camera retrieved I hiked northwest along the dirt road, crossing a large mud puddle and turning right.
Note: I chose this route because on a topo map it looked easier. After completing the hike I have my doubts, and believe this is the correct entry point:
The elevation gain begins immediately and doesn’t quit. I headed northwest up a steep grassy slope, enjoying the meteor shower and a herd of either goats of sheep watching my ascent (in the dark I couldn’t tell which they were, but could see them watching me).
The grassy slope turned to large rocks and talus as I entered a basin.
In the moonlight I could see my goal: this steep scree section at the base of the black gully. I’ve lightened these pictures up for detail, but this is where I was headed.
The ascent was a grueling climb over steep scree, made marginally easier when I put on my microspikes. The worst part was getting all those small rocks inside my shoes. I couldn’t help but think I should be wearing gaiters to keep the rocks out. Don’t they make something for this for runners so they don’t get rocks in their shoes? Anyway, the terrain was not ideal in the least: some of the worst scree/talus/etc. I’ve ever encountered. At times I was literally grasping the dirt for traction with my hands.
I exited climbers left out of the black gully. The black gully is class 2+ climbing, and much easier than the scree/talus I encountered before the gully. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to climb.
Here’s a look back down the black gully. You can see “Coffeepot” in the upper left corner
Here’s a look at the route from the top of the black gully
I followed the rock rib around until I came to another gully, climbed up, and turned left
From here there’s some rock scrambling. I kept heading northwest towards the summit tower
Ok, easy part over. Now it was time to get out my gear and mentally prepare for this climb. Looking at the route it didn’t look that difficult. I felt confident I could climb both up and down without needing ropes (ha!). I changed into my rock climbing shoes, put on my harness just so I wouldn’t need to at the top, and left my trekking pole and hiking boots at the base of the climb: no need to carry unnecessary equipment.
Here’s the route up
The first half of this climb was indeed straightforward, but as soon as I crossed over to the ‘actual’ climb things got a little more hairy and I quickly came to the realization I was not going to be able to downclimb if I continued, and if I were to go any further, I would need to fully commit. It was either downclimb now or I was doing this all the way. My legs started to shake so I took a steadying breath and reminded myself I’d trained for this and it was within my abilities. I looked up and steadily climbed to the top, being careful with each hand/foothold I chose. I couldn’t help thinking to myself (over and over again) how much easier this would have been if I’d been a few inches taller. I’m happy with being 5’4”, but at times like this being 5’6”+ definitely would have its advantages.
I made it to the top and looked back down on what I’d done. Woot! I’d made it! I dropped my gear and tried to get a few pictures. This wasn’t working, mainly because the summit just wasn’t big enough. So, selfies it is again. I did get a video and a few pictures to prove I’d summited (you’d be surprised how much some other people care…). I summited Teakettle Mountain at 7:15am
Summit Video:
Oh, and I know that’s not a teacup but an espresso cup. I don’t own any teacups and I was planning on climbing “Coffeepot” today as well, so I compromised (also, this is Teakettle, not Teacup… and btw I do love all those teacup photos, not throwing shade here, just rambling). Mississippi is a nod to family. Also, there may or may not be whiskey in that cup. Ok, there was, but only a sip. I still had to make it back down but still felt a bit like reveling: I’d climbed up without a rope!
Now for the true test: setting up an anchor and rappelling back down. There were several anchors already set up, and while I’d love to trust someone else’s’ anchor (let’s face it, the odds are in their favor here) I didn’t know how long they had been there, so I decided to set my own anchor up and attach it to the ones already in place.
I was worried I’d forget something. Not that I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was at altitude, hadn’t had any food/water besides a sip of whiskey (personal choice on 99% of my hikes to prevent nausea) and had done a lot of physical activity and I didn’t want to mess up here, so I checked and re-checked everything twice and then a third time and made sure to secure my sling(s) before even beginning. Luckily there was a stable rock behind the anchor for me to use during set-up as well.
Anchor all set up I uncoiled my rope, attached it to the anchor, and threw it in the position I wanted for a rappel.
OK, moment of truth. I put back on all my gear, attached the belay device, leaned back and everything held, so I unhooked my slings, took a deep breath, and leaned back. It all went smoothly and faster than I’d anticipated. So much so that I stopped about 10 feet from the ground and played with the side of the wall, pushing my feet off the rocks and bouncing back and forth for a bit before finishing the rappel. Yes, I was pretty proud of myself when my feet hit the ground safely, and even more so after I’d retrieved and recoiled my rope.
After changing back into my hiking shoes and putting all my gear away I figured it was a good time to celebrate: I actually took a full shot of whiskey (now that the hard part was over) and decided to play a bit with the rock formation. It would have been really cool to get one of those pictures with me in the hole, but there was no way I could set up my camera and make it back into position in time, so I settled for one of my shadowselfies.
I spent a lot more time here than I usually would at a ‘summit’ but I was celebrating: This climb had been several years in the making, I’d put a lot of energy and effort into all this climb entailed, and (with the training help of friends) I’d successfully summited solo. I was going to celebrate!!!
After a few minutes of fun I turned and headed back towards the Black Gully. From the Black Gully here’s the look at the route over to “Coffeepot” (and the route I would have taken over to the Black Gully had I not taken the scree route up)
Here’s a look in the daylight back down the scree route up
From the bench below “Coffeepot” here’s a look back at the Black Gully
From here I turned left (east) and decided to check out “Coffeepot”. It doesn’t much look like a coffeepot from this angle, does it? It’s basically a quick class 3 climb over some rocks, and a short class 5.0-5.2 climb (per Roach) up a chimney.
I made it about ¼ of the way up the chimney and realized I didn’t fit with my backpack on, so I retreated, set down my pack at the top of the class 3 part, and tried again sans gear. It was much easier this time and reminded me of when I was younger and would climb through a tree hollowed out by lightning. It was a tight fit but I felt very secure as I twisted around and topped out at the top of “Coffeepot”. I summited “Coffeepot” at 8:45am
Video:
Back down was a bit tricky because I had to go over an overhang to get back into the chimney, but in today’s conditions I felt in no way was a rope necessary (I did hold onto the anchor a bit as I was steadying myself in the beginning, but it wasn’t necessary).
It you feel comfortable at class 4 climbing and are considering trying “Coffeepot” I’d say go for it. Here’s a look at the climbing side of “Coffeepot”
From here I could see Potosi Peak, my next objective.
I was feeling pretty good at this point, having completed two Class 5 climbs. However, this peak actually proved to be difficult because there were some unexpected obstacles in the way. Here’s the initial route down and back up the ridge, over to the corner of the cliffs
From the Coffeepot/Potosi saddle up the ridge was full of very loose talus. I’d encourage you to keep your helmet on for the entire hike, even though some of this stuff is labeled at 2+
The traverse around to the corner of Potosi took much longer than anticipated, but was straightforward.
At the corner I turned left and headed northeast up and over some more loose talus and rocks
And around the south side of Potosi until I came to a gully. This area was well cairned until the gully.
As I rounded the corner and came to the gully I was surprised to find a large mass of snow blocking the route up. This snow was at least 4 feet thick, 30 feet across, and 50 feet vertical, turning the class 2+ gully into a class 3 climb over large, unstable and loose rocks to get around the soft snow.
Here’s looking back down on the snow filled gully area
After the snow there was more class 3 climbing to get to the top of the gully. To be fair, it looked like there had been quite a bit of recent rockfall, including several large boulders.
About 100 feet before the top of the gully I headed up and over this rocky area. The rock is stable but covered in a lot of small rocks, making it slippery to climb. There were cairns here as well.
Almost done, I headed up through more loose talus, through a notch, and turned left for the short push to the summit
There was a bit of snow here, surrounded by squishy mud: the kind that will suck your shoes off if your foot settles on it for any length of time, so I quickly traversed this area to the summit
I summited Potosi Peak at 11:05am
Summit Video:
The summit was relatively flat
I pulled out my phone and checked my tracker. It said I’d gone 3.9 miles so far today and that seemed like a lie. I thought to myself I’d need to delete and re-download the app because last week it had stopped on me unexpectedly during my last hike and now it wasn’t tracking accurately… it must need a reboot.
I quickly headed back down the gully, around the side of Potosi, and back towards the Potosi/Coffeepot saddle. This is where I made my first mistake: I had the option of climbing back up to Coffeepot and taking the traditional way down, or going straight down from the Potosi/Coffeepot Gully. I chose the gully (I’d advise you to instead head back up to “Coffeepot” and then down).
In any event, I made it to the saddle and turned to head down the gully, aiming for the most stable sections of scree, navigating between rock formations
Here’s a look back up at the decent route I took from the saddle
When I got to the base of the rock formations I looked ahead and could tell I did not want to continue straight: The gully turned into a waterfall and I could see snow at the base. It did not look safe. (Solid line). That was ok though because I had beta from a friend telling me I could just traverse over the hillside and I’d eventually run into the trail that led up “Coffeepot” (dotted line). I figured nothing could be worse than the talus on the ascent, right?
Here’s what I was trying to avoid
Let me tell you, this beta was FALSE! Even though it looks like you can traverse over, you cannot. Well, I did, but went through a lot of very sketchy terrain. Visually it looks like you can cross on tundra the entire way but there are rock gullies you can’t see from here, and in fact can’t see until you’re right up on them. Yes, I checked beforehand it looked like it went on a topo, but on the ground it wasn’t working. There were gullies everywhere that were extremely difficult to cross. Every time I made it over one I’d encounter another. I didn’t even feel comfortable stopping to take pictures. It was frustrating because I could clearly see where I needed to be, I just couldn’t get there. Please don’t take this way. It looks like it goes, and maybe it does in winter, but it wasn’t safe. My advice is to skip this decent route all together and hike back up to “Coffeepot” and then down. It took me a lot longer than it should have to descend, and there were many times I almost turned around and retraced my steps back up to the saddle (which I was very close to doing before figuring out the route). Oh, and there was graupel involved. I was ecstatic when I finally did link up to the ascent route and made my way down to the parking lot.
Here’s a look from the road at the route I don’t advise you to take
I made it back at 3pm, making this a 6 mile hike/climb with 4168’ in elevation gain in just over 11 hours. And yes, my tracker was correct (it just felt like so much longer due to all the elevation gain).
All in all, I considered today a great success: I’d summited Teakettle solo, tagged “Coffeepot” and Potosi, and learned a lot about trusting someone else’s’ beta. I drove the 6 hours home, took a bath, and then took my daughters out to a late dinner to celebrate my oldest being home from drum corps and my youngest completing her first week as an upperclassman.
This year Girl Scout Troop 2393 chose to be traffic cones (an inside joke) for their theme at Reach for the Peak. They spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours this year practicing for this competition, designing costumes, skits, and practicing their outdoor survival and cooking skills. They went a little overboard for campsite set-up this year, being overly “cautious” and creating hazards out of caution tape (which they thought was hilarious). I loved the “Marmot” and “Bighorn Sheep” crossing signs they made. They were all exhausted after set-up, but still stayed up for a bit talking in their tent before falling asleep. I was laying in my tent, proud to hear them decide they wanted to practice their knots again before bed. Then Caroline led them all in a short yoga/shavasana session, and they fell asleep.
First thing in the morning the girls ate breakfast and made their lunches for the day. In the past they’ve been docked points for not having a nutritious enough lunch, so this time they went overboard with the fruits and veggies!
Then it was off to flag where they had a few extra minutes and decided to dedicate them to practicing their knots (once again).
Their first competition of the day was Emergency Survival, which they rocked! Oh, and Caroline was great at reminding everyone about sunscreen and water… She even made up a song!
Fire building is Emily’s specialty. At Reach for the Peak they have the girls use metal fire barrels, which are actually difficult to use because they’re concave and not flat like a normal fire pit. This has been an issue for the girls for years, but this summer Emily was a camp counselor at this camp and figured out the trick to starting fires in these particular barrels. She didn’t use a traditional A-frame of Log cabin, but was able to quickly and efficiently start the fire. And the girls popped the popcorn and put it out in the allotted time. Lauren was in charge of tool craft and sawed logs for the girls to use. Great job ladies!
On to the lashing competition! When the girls first came here 6 years ago they had the same task: to build a trebuchet and launch a cow over the moon. They weren’t able to get much done that year, but this year they were able to successfully build the machine and launch a ‘cow’ over the moon. They were so proud of themselves! (also, these are all timed events)
The girls were really excited for Emergency First Aid this year, as they all have their CPR/First Aid certificates and Kimberly’s currently working as a lifeguard at the local YMCA. Their victims were cut up pretty badly and one was having a heart attack. Neither of them died!
Next up were knots. These girls have been practicing knots since 2008, and know them all pretty well. This competition was fun for the girls: they even did a handful extra, hoping to earn extra points…
The last competition for the girls was the dinner competition. They’ve practiced this meal on four different campouts this summer, and have got the recipe down. Check out their menu… It’s Road Kill Themed and included frying plantain chips and cooking an entire chicken in the Dutch Oven
RftP 2019 Menu – You Kill It, We Grill It
Kabobs (Grill) – Fender Tenders
Corn (Fire) – Chunks of Skunk
Shrimp (Cooler) – Deer Tail
Plantain Chips (Pan) – Road Flakes
Fruit Salad (cold) – Highway Hash
Chicken (Dutch Oven) – If you can guess what it is you eat for free!
Veggies (pot) – Slop (Guess that mess?)
Pudding & Gummie Worms (Hobo) – Dirt Cups
Sun Tea (Solar) – Bug Juice
After the competition dinner was cleaned up the real fun began! The girls invited some other troops competing they’d met at previous competitions to have a campfire with them. The girls all live in different parts of the state but in the past few years have really hit it off: they’ve even joined us at Hamp Hut! This year one of the troops asked if their younger sister troop could join in, so we had double the number of girls. This is one of my favorite parts about Girl Scouting: the girls are all in ‘competition’ with each other, yet really cheer each other on and genuinely like each other. They share a bond. We had a fire and the girls chatted about how they felt they did in the competition events and life in general until it started raining and everyone went back to their tents. It rained all night long, but finally stopped around 6:30am, just in time to pack up all our gear and get ready for awards.
Oh, but first, it’s skits! Check out the skit Troop 2393 came up with…
And now time for awards: Before they were given out the girls posed by their traffic cone (another inside joke).
The girls earned the Eagle Award! Great Job Ladies!
This event is made possible by a wonderful committee of volunteers who put a lot of time and effort into this event. It’s by far my girls favorite Girl Scouting activity, and they talk about it with every troop they meet. If you’d like to help volunteer with this event in any way (as a judge, with ideas, special skills, monetary donations, etc.) please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the right person. I love watching the girls grow every year in their outdoor survival skills!
I seriously debated on whether or not this hike would even be possible today: I had to be home no later than 2pm because that’s when Troop 2393 was meeting at my house for the Reach for the Peak survival competition. They train all year for this, and as their coach I didn’t want to disappoint them by making them late to the event. I did the math and figured if I started hiking at 1am I’d make it back just in time. It meant hiking and route finding for a long time in the dark, but I felt this was within my abilities.
I left my house at 10:00pm and drove to the trailhead. It took longer than anticipated on the 4WD part of the 390.2B dirt road due to running water (not a big deal) and mud puddles (looked bigger in the dark).
Parking was at the Lake Ann / Clear Creek / Huron / South Winfield 4WD trailhead. I didn’t make it to the trailhead until 1:15am, but I was on the trail by 1:30am. I set my alarm for 7am as a turnaround time. There’s plenty of parking at this trailhead.
The trail begins at the south end of the parking area, and follows the Lake Ann Trail
The beginning part of this trail is easy to follow on a wide path
At this junction stay left
And enter the Collegiate Peaks Boundary at about .6 mi
If it had been daylight I would have been able to see North Apostle and Ice Mountain here
At 1.2 miles there’s another junction. Stay left here
I quickly arrived at the next (unmarked) junction and turned right, crossing a creek in the dark on a solid log bridge.
The trail was still easy to follow through the trees. I’d heard there was an avalanche area somewhere, but never saw it in the dark
The real route finding began when the trail ended at the creek
I spent about 15 minutes walking up and down the banks of the creek in the dark trying to find a way to cross, but was unable to find a log bridge (etc.). It looked like a bunch of logs and small trees had been used as a makeshift bridge recently, but it had washed out. I found a few trees, tried to make a quick bridge and realized I was just wasting time, so I took off my shoes and crossed the creek. There wasn’t a moon, but the stars tonight were amazing!
On my way back in the daylight I was able to find an actual crossing that didn’t require getting my feet wet. If you continue along the banks of the creek after the trail ends for about 200 feet you’ll find a large tree that creates a crossing. There’s some walking through the willows to find the crossing. Here’s where I found it:
After crossing the creek I sat down to put on my shoes and then continued southeast up and around to the basin. There was no trail here, so I just had to skirt the mountainside and head up. Also, I saw a flash of light and then it started to rain. Violently. There had only been a 20% chance of rain before noon today, and here it was at 3:30 in the morning pouring rain. I put on my helmet and sheltered in place until the lightening stopped. I was surprised the sky had been full of stars one minute, cloudy and stormy the next.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had started, but now everything was slippery and wet. This part of the hike required about a half mile of bushwhacking through the trees to make it to a waterfall area. There were several game and social trails, but none of them were continuous or led up to the waterfall area. I just kept hugging the mountainside, trekking southeast.
I made it out of the trees to a rocky waterfall area (that was more of a slope than a fall) and rock-hopped up
At the top of the waterfall area there are a bunch of willows and another stream to cross. The stream isn’t very wide, but it’s fast flowing and covered by willows. By getting creative and using the willows I was able to find a crossing area here
Once I crossed the creek I continued southeast into the basin. The only thing that made this difficult was route finding in the dark. I wasn’t able to see the outlines of the mountains, or anything much that was further than 20 feet ahead of me. I could hear rocks falling in the basin, and was glad I had already put on my helmet. I found a few cairns which were helpful to let me know I was on the right track. In the light of day I figured out this area is very well cairned, but in the dark I only saw about 1 out of every 5.
Here’s the route through the basin. I was doing this in the dark, so I just hugged the climbers left side of the basin (southeast)
I rock hopped on solid rocks and then came to a scree section. This scree section actually wasn’t that bad because of the earlier rain: scree provides great traction when wet. The wet rocks were another story: they were slippery and required patience.
I encountered two small patches of snow. I had crampons and microspikes, but after testing the snow didn’t feel they were necessary and just walked across them. I didn’t realize it in the dark, but I was aiming towards a rock ‘gate’. Also, I could hear running water to my left.
Once through the gate I turned left (east)
And gained the saddle between North Apostle and Ice Mountain
Once at the saddle I could summit either Ice Mountain or North Apostle, but chose North Apostle so I’d have a good view of Ice Mountain (class 3) on a class 2 route. Here’s the final push to North Apostle
This as an easy class 2 route that took me less than 15 minutes to complete from the saddle. The sun was beginning to rise
I summited at 6:15am
North Apostle
I turned and looked at the class 3 route up Ice Mountain. I knew I was a little pressed for time: my turnaround time was 7am, and it was already 6:15am. I didn’t stay long on North Apostle and worked my way carefully back towards the saddle, being careful not to slip on the wet rocks.
From the North Apostle/Ice Mountain Saddle the first obstacle was this section of climbing. I stuck to the ridge and didn’t find it difficult
I rounded the ridge and dipped down just a bit to a notch, crossed the notch, and headed up the solid and cairned route up the ridge. My alarm went off. Drat. It was 7am, and I was so close to the summit! I went back and forth in my head a few seconds, realized I’d started later than I’d planned, so surely I wasn’t at my halfway point yet? I could squeeze in another 20 minutes and still be fine, right? My math here was iffy, but I figured I was less than 15 minutes from the summit: I’d find a way to make up the time. Surely route finding would be much easier in the daylight? That would help… right?
Here are some closer pictures
I came to a gully and took the solid route up and the dotted line down. The solid route felt sketchy to me (which is why I took the other way down). I don’t think either was better than the other.
I summited at 7:10am.
Ice Mountain
Here’s a look back on the route up to North Apostle
Ok, had no time to waste so I didn’t stay long at the summit. I decided to head down a slightly different way than I’d headed up.
Before making it to the saddle I found it easier to just begin descending a gully towards the gates I hadn’t seen in the dark
Here’s looking up at the way I came down from Ice Mountain
Ok, time to go through the gate and head back down the basin. This was so much easier in the daylight! I was definitely going to be able to make it back to my truck by 11am.
The running water I’d heard earlier was a trickle of a waterfall down the side of the mountain that was flowing beneath the rocks I was hopping.
I made it to the first patch of snow and misjudged its texture, thinking it would be similar to how it was when I crossed 2 hours ago: solid but soft enough to provide traction. I stepped on the snow and immediately slipped, flailing my arms and flying backwards, landing on my tailbone. That wasn’t snow but ice, and it was solid. It felt like I’d landed my tailbone on a rock. OUCH! I knew as soon as I hit this was not good. I jumped up, glad to find nothing was broken and I could stand, and did what I always do in this kind of a situation: I kept moving. The first fifty yards or so were painful, but then just became uncomfortable and it only hurt when I upclimbed. Eventually it stopped hurting altogether and just became a nuisance. I could tell it was going to bruise and it would be sore for a few weeks, but immediately walking it out seems to be the best policy for me.
All those cairns! I was so glad to see them all in the daylight! I rounded the end of the basin and had a great view of 14er Huron Peak as well as the rest of the route to the trail.
Route finding was much easier in the daylight on my way back down, but still an exercise in bushwhacking and following my compass. At least now I had visuals to help
The only problem with walking through all the grass and shrubs were they were still wet from the rain, and even though I have waterproof boots they were soaked through at this point. I was debating if it was even worth it to take off my boots for the creek crossing (decided in the end it was because stream water dries with a terrible stench) when I saw a felled tree crossing the creek. I crossed the creek on this tree and then walked through the willows a bit by the bank of the creek to eventually link back up with the trail. The rest of the hike out was uneventful and absolutely beautiful. I was able to enjoy the blue skies and greenery without the nuisance of mosquitoes. I saw a pair of hikers about 2 miles from the trailhead, but that was it for people for the whole day.
It had been my goal to make it back to my truck by 11am, and I was able to make it down by 10:40am, keeping me right on track to be home by 2pm so I could take a shower and pack before the girls all arrived. (For those wondering, they won the Eagle Award).
I made it back to my truck at 10:40am and went to stop my tracker, only to find it had stopped on its own 3.7 miles into the hike. I’m not sure why it stopped (maybe the rain?), but I don’t have a track for this climb, so I’m going by my iPhone app when I say it was about 10.5 miles and using the 4000’ in elevation gain as an approximate from topo maps and guide books. This hike took me just over 9 hours to complete.
My decision to attempt Mt Adams from Horn Creek was based on distance to the trailhead: The Willows Creek trailhead was an extra 1.5 hours in driving time from my house than the Horn Creek Trailhead, so that’s the route I chose. There were several cars in the parking lot when I arrived, and at least two parties camping in tents. The bathrooms were open and clean. It had rained the night before. I was on the trail at 2:30am.
I followed the well defined trail to the left. While the path was easy to follow, I could tell the rocks on the trail in this section were going to be hard on my feet on the way out.
After about .3 of a mile I came to a junction in the dark. My instructions said to go southwest here, so despite doing the obvious thing and following the sign that pointed right to Horn Creek I got out my compass and saw southwest was left. I turned left and walked for about a quarter mile before realizing (remembering) I was on the trail for Colony Baldy, and there was no way it was taking me to Horn Creek. I turned around and retraced my steps and corrected where I’d gone wrong… (turn right at this sign, do not go southwest)
Continue on this trail for about one tenth of a mile and you’ll come to another junction where you then turn southwest (left) and follow a well defined trail for about 5 miles to Horn Lakes.
There’s a trail register shortly after the second junction. I signed my name and for some reason wrote “Horn Peak” as my destination even though it was actually Mt Adams, but didn’t realize this until I’d hiked a few miles past the register. Whoops!
From here the trail became less rocky and followed Horn Creek. I could tell even in the dark the flowers were amazing right now!
At about 2.5 miles I crossed Horn Creek on what I’d describe as ‘bouncy’ logs: They bounced up and down as I walked across them.
The trail became quite overgrown at this point, and my legs were getting a little damp from the plants still wet from last night’s rain. I looked for animal/human tracks and didn’t see any on the trail. It was a nice and gentle hike in without a moon. Oh, and there were moths I honestly thought were bats at first they were so big. They were white, loud as they flapped their wings, and quite attracted to my flashlight. The first few gave me quite a start, but I quickly got used to them.
There was water in the middle of the trail around mile 3
And another stream crossing at mile 4. I crossed the creek and headed up into the basin
I was a little worried I wasn’t following the correct trail here because there was also a trail that didn’t cross the creek the second time and in the dark looked like it paralleled this trail, entering the basin as well. The trails never converged, but it looked like the other trail made it to Horn Lakes too
The trail goes all the way to the end of the basin, but at some point you need to turn right (west) and head up a steep grassy slope to gain Point 13,325 and the ridge to Mt Adams. I did this at about 11,780’ while I was still under treeline, and as I turned west this is what I saw
There was a lot of bushwhacking involved for about 20 yards or so, and then the brush and trees cleared and I could see where I was headed.
As I ascended the northeast ridge the sun began to rise and as I looked back I could see some of the lakes I’d passed and not noticed in the dark
This slope is very steep and longer than it looks. There are willows here, but luckily they’re only about a foot or so off the ground so they’re easy to navigate. There are a lot of different ways to gain the ridge. This seemed like the easiest route to me
I did my best to avoid the willows when possible
Here’s looking back down on the basin from about halfway up the slope
Once I made it up the top of the slope (Point 13,325) I turned left (southwest) and could see the rest of the route before me. The ridge looked like fun!!!
This ridge can be kept at a class 2 if you know where to go, but class 3-4 if you just stick to the ridge. I like scrambling so I took the solid route up and the dotted line down.
The first obstacle was this bump in the ridge. I went straight over the top but you can keep this class 2 by going to the right and skirting the bump
Here’s the next obstacle. Once again you can go straight over the top or keep it class 2 by going to the right
Finally I had to decide which way I wanted to summit. I like sticking to ridges when I can, so I decided to continue my climb along the ridge. I took the solid line up, and dotted line down
I kind of skirted the point next to Mt Adams and aimed for the ‘saddle’ between the point and summit block
Once at the base of the summit block there were several options to summit, all easily kept at a difficult class 2. The ground here was surprisingly stable and covered in vegetation.
I summited at 8am
Summit Video:
The summit marker was missing a few things…
But the views of the surrounding peaks were amazing!
I decided to descend a different way than I’d taken up. Here’s a look at the route I took back to the ridge
I skirted Point 13,325 to the right on my way back
Here’s another look at the steep slope
And the path I took down
Here’s where my route diverged a bit from the way up: I continued to follow the ridge, staying just a little to the right as I did, and ended up in a navigable scree-filled gully. I descended the gully and aimed for the trail I could see in the distance that would lead me back down the basin.
At about 12,000’ I found what I’m pretty sure are oceanic fossils in the talus.
I exited at 11,690’. Here’s looking back at the route. The solid line is the way I took up, dotted is back down. Neither was better than the other, and there seemed to be many ways to ascend the slope and gain the ridge.
As soon as I found the trail that would lead me back to the trailhead the mosquitoes started swarming. This is the type of area they liked best. Luckily it only lasted for 3 miles or so…
There were tons of mosquitoes. I could swipe my hand through the air and dozens would be on my arm. I couldn’t stop to take pictures of flowers (etc) without mosquitoes taking it as an opportunity to land and feast.
They were biting me through my clothes. Even though it was around 80 degrees I put on my puffy jacket and a hat and stopped stopping. Back at the trail register I corrected my hike to Mt Adams (not that it mattered anymore) and luckily by then the mosquitoes had died down a bit. The rocks on the trail were indeed bothersome on the way out. I made it back to the trailhead a little before 12pm, making this a 13.5 mile hike with 5292’ in elevation gain in 9.5 hours.
There are so many routes up Mt Meeker, and some have pretty cool names: Flying Dutchman, Dream Weaver, Dragon’s Tail, etc. I chose the Iron Gates route because for some reason it sounded cool to climb through The Iron Gates. I was also told this route had the best views of Longs Peak (I wasn’t disappointed). Plus… the knife edge between Meeker Ridge and Mt Meeker sounded like fun, and I wanted to find out what a “flying buttress” was.
I was surprised with how many vehicles were in the Longs Peak Trailhead parking area when I arrived. It’s a large lot, and was at least halfway full. Several hikers were readying their gear. Last time I was here was the Friday before a Labor Day weekend, and I hadn’t seen very many people at all. I saw dozens of hikers on the trail this morning.
I arrived at the parking lot at 2:30am and was on the trail by 2:40am. I chose to take the Chasm Meadows Approach from Longs Peak Trailhead. The trail starts to the left of the Rangers Station.
I could see headlamps shining brightly ahead of me, and passed four groups of hikers before making it to the first junction about ½ a mile from the trailhead. Stay left here
The trail is definitely class 1 all the way to Chasm Lake. I saw multiple groups ahead of me, all intent on Longs Peak. They had very bright headlamps. Very bright. In fact, at times they were almost blinding, especially as I got closer to a group of hikers and they’d turn around to look at me. I realized this morning just how dim my flashlight actually is (but I like it that way: sometimes a bright flashlight gives too much information).
Around treeline I could see the full moon with city lights in the background.
After making it to treeline there’s still 1.7 miles left to Chasm Lake. Stay left here as well.
About a mile before reaching chasm lake there’s a trail junction where you can stop for a bit to use the privy and let your horses rest.
Having to do neither I continued on towards chasm lake, a little disappointed to lose a couple hundred feet in elevation in the process.
Here there were a couple of small snow areas to cross that were quite slippery in the morning, but easy to navigate in the afternoon.
Just before Chasm Lake the trail ended. I made it to this area while it was still dark and it looked like there was a lot more snow than there actually was. The dotted line is the route I took up the gully, the solid one is the route I took on my way back down. This ended up being a good approach, as the solid way down went through a waterfall that would have been messy in the dark.
My goal was to make it to the Iron Gates. In the dark I couldn’t see much and while I knew I was headed in the correct direction I didn’t have a visual yet of the Iron Gates.
The terrain at the base of the Iron Gates was very loose scree, mixed with small rocks. As I climbed higher the ground became loose talus that became more stable until it eventually turned into solid rocks. I headed straight through to the back of the Iron Gates
Here the sun began to rise and I was able to see why this route is said to have great views of Longs Peak
At the end of the Iron Gates there’s some class 3 scrambling to gain the ridge
There’s a cairn at the top I made a mental note of to help me find the entrance on the way back down
Here’s a look back down the Iron Gates at Chasm Lake
At the top of the Iron Gates I turned right (south) and climbed the northeast ridge to Meeker Ridge (the unranked peak, not the ridge itself)
Yes, there were some pretty awesome views of Longs Peak
I made it to Meeker Ridge at 6:45am. I got a quick selfie and video at this unranked 13er
Meeker Ridge:
Up until this point the hike had been easy, but now it was about to get a little spicy. It was time to traverse the short ridge between Meeker Ridge and Mt Meeker. This ridge has a ‘mini-knife edge’ similar to the one on Capitol Peak. I was able to stick to the ridge for this short traverse, dropping down to the right only once when absolutely necessary. This is a solid class 3 ridge with exposure.
Here’s a tip for the knife-edge part: It’s very similar to the one on Capitol Peak, and would make for a great practice run if you’re hesitant to try Capitol but feel solid with class 3 climbing. While on Meeker’s knife edge you can cross and use your right foot for balance by placing it on the rock beneath the ledge. This rock is underneath the knife ledge and difficult to see, but a few inches wide, solid, and you can use it for extra balance if needed. The rock here felt more solid than on Capitol.
Here’s looking back at Meeker Ridge
And some of the climbing/exposure on route
I made it to the summit of Mt Meeker at 7:15am, or what I thought was the summit of Mt Meeker. At the top of the traverse there were two points about 40 feet apart that both looked like the true summit. I sat on top of the first point, but the second point looked higher. So I went over and climbed to the top of the second point, but from there the first point looked higher. So I decided to take a video from the middle of both points and pictures from both.
Mt Meeker:
It was still early in the morning and the weather was holding out nicely. I decided to descend Mt Meeker and cross the Loft towards Longs Peak. Longs Peak wasn’t my goal, as I’ve already summited Longs, but I wanted to get a look at the Notch route up Longs and summit Southeast Longs (an unranked 14er sub summit). Southeast Longs is where the orange line ends.
To get there I descended 450’ to the loft, and then gained 600’ to the top of Southeast Longs.
The rocks here were solid and much larger than they looked from Mt Meeker. There were a bunch of social trails here so I just took the path of least resistance to the top.
I made it there at 8:25am. You can see Longs Peak Summit in the background
Curious as to what the Notch and path to Longs Peak looked like from here I descended to the cairn that indicated the entrance to the Notch and looked over. It looked like a class 3 scramble that would lose a couple hundred feet in elevation, and then re-gain it on the other side, connecting with the traditional Longs Peak Route just before the final pitch.
I briefly thought about attempting Longs Peak as well, but did some mental calculations and figured it would get me back around 3-3:30pm, and I really wanted to be back around 1:30pm, so I decided to save Longs Peak round 2 for another day. Also, there were a ton of people queued for the final push on Longs (I could see/hear them) and a lot of people on the summit as well. I’m not a fan of crowds, especially on peaks. In any event, I still had some more climbing to do myself, as I needed to re-ascend Mt Meeker to head back. I did not want to make this a loop.
The clouds were starting to build as I gained Meeker’s ridge
While they looked ominous at first (especially for being so early in the day) nothing came of them. The clouds did hide the sun for most of my return back to the trailhead and I did get a few drops of rain here and there, but I was never worried about thunderstorms.
Time for knife-edge part 2. I felt much more confident the second time around, and the traverse went much faster. I was well aware of the group of 15 or so people on top of Longs Peak watching me make the traverse. I could hear them talking to each other as I climbed up boulders and balanced on the ridge.
Just as I made it back to Meeker Ridge I met a young man beginning his attempt of the traverse. He’d had a long day, starting from Sandbeach Lake. I wished him luck and was on my way back down the Northeast Ridge towards the Iron Gates
As Chasm Lake came into view I could hear loud shouts that sounded like a large group was down there having fun. A group was paddleboarding. It seemed like a lot of work to me to get multiple paddleboards up to Chasm Lake, but hey, they must really be into the sport. I wondered to myself if it was legal to paddleboard there? I descended into the Iron Gates and had no problem on the larger rocks/talus. However, descending the scree was a bit of a small nightmare. I was so glad when I made it to the bottom of the Iron Gates and turned around to see them in the daylight
I followed the gully more to the west this time and descended via a wide waterfall area with small rivers of water flowing throughout
This brought me to the base of Chasm Lake, where I picked up the trail back to Chasm Meadows. This is also where I met up with a group of 12 or so campers from a nearby camp. I could tell immediately they weren’t Girl Scouts because there was only 1 adult with them, the girls were all wearing shorts and did not look like they’d been “roughing it”. I asked them where they were from and wished them well as I hiked out.
A few minutes later as I reached the Jims Grove area I could hear the girls behind me, their counselor yelling at them every 10 seconds or so to “hurry up” even though they were setting a fast pace. Long story short, she pushed them too hard and one of the girls clipped and fell. She’s alright and just scraped her knee, but I hope the counselor learned her lesson and slowed down a bit.
It was great seeing the waterfall crossing areas on my way down in the daylight.
I made it back to my truck at 1:15pm, making this a 13.5 hour hike with 5764’ in elevation gain in 10 hours 30 minutes
Today’s hike was absolutely beautiful! I can’t wait to head back here to tackle a few more 13ers…
No, I didn’t drive straight to the Missouri Gulch trailhead. It took me forever to drive home going 50mph on the I70. I made it home at 7am and limped out of the truck. My feet seemed to hurt more now than they did last night. They’d dried out, but were now red and raw. I decided to take a few hours ‘off’ to let my feet rest. After cleaning up and pampering my feet I took a 5 hour nap. When I woke up my feet had dried out and I was able to get a better look. No blisters. That was a relief. They were still red and swollen though, meaning I’d had a Raynaud’s attack yesterday. It all made sense, and was most likely caused by the 20 minutes I spent trying to dig out my water shoes from the cold creek combined with a long, physical day.
Driving home had been the right thing to do. By the middle of the day my feet were still sore but I found I could walk on them. Kind of… you see, it hurt terribly to begin walking, but after the 10th step or so the pain went away. So I figured I just had to start hiking and not stop and I’d be fine.
At 9pm I made the decision to drive to the trailhead, try to nap for an hour, and attempt another hike. It was either that or stay home and do the treadmill thing in the morning, which did not sound appealing with sore feet.
Everything went well. I made it to the trailhead and slept for an hour before my alarm went off at 2am. There were tons of vehicles at the trailhead. As I was putting on my hiking boots a couple drove up in a Subaru. We were hitting the trail at the same time, so when I got out of my truck I waved and said hi to them. No response. Hmmmm… ok. Maybe they hadn’t seen me (or that the lights on in my truck)? I turned on my flashlight, walked over to the trailhead and once again said “hi guys!” I was hoping to just chat and see where they were going before setting off. When I see others at trailheads I like to connect in case something happens (to either of us). Once again, they didn’t respond (but their dog looked back at me). Maybe the creek was making too much noise for them to hear me? Ok, well, I don’t like to be rude but I’d tried to be nice. Maybe I’d see them on the way down. I didn’t say anything as I quickly scooted past them and headed down to the stream, crossed the bridge, and headed up the trail.
Yes, my feet hurt, but I had a plan: don’t stop. Also, take ibuprofen every 4 hours. The first few steps were painful, but after that as long as I kept moving the pain went away. This was my second attempt of Emerald/Iowa, and my 4th time hiking via the Missouri Gulch trailhead. Call me crazy, but those switchbacks are getting easier. Also, the baby grave doesn’t bother me so much anymore.
The avalanche area has been nicely cleared, and now there’s a log bridge over the creek and a nicely manicured trail through the avy debris.
I made it to the cabin in exactly 1 hour and thought that was pretty good time, considering.
I entered Missouri Gulch and had no problems following the well established trail. The willows seem so much bigger without all the snow.
I turned right at the junction for Elkhead Pass/Belford and followed the trail towards Elkhead Pass.
There were several stream crossings to navigate here. These were not fun in the dark, but in the daylight didn’t pose much of a problem. Oh, and there aren’t any ‘easier’ ways to cross: just cross them right where they intersect with the trail.
I felt like I was making pretty good time. It’s amazing how much easier the gulch is to navigate without snow. I made it to the Elkhead Pass/Missouri Mountain junction
This is where I got a little worried: this is the first hike all year I haven’t brought along my snowshoes, and the area before Elkhead Pass looked to be full of snow. Luckily there actually wasn’t that much and what snow there was was solid in the morning so I didn’t need traction (I had spikes and crampons in my bag, but didn’t need them).
It was still dark as I navigated my way through the snow and sometimes trail up to Elkhead Pass. Here’s a look at the route from later in the day coming down from Missouri. The snow was easily navigable, but seems like much more when you’re down there hiking through it.
I found myself at the top of Elkhead Pass at 5:15am. It had taken me 3 hours to get here (4.1 miles and 3580 in elevation gain). Remembering how icy conditions had forced me to turn around here last time I was a bit worried to see snow at the top of the pass, but as I got closer I noticed there wasn’t as much snow as I’d initially thought. (Sorry for the poor quality of the next few photos: I took them in the dark and had to lighten them up so show details)
I descended Elkhead Pass, but not all the way to the bottom of Missouri Basin (Yes, Missouri Basin, not Missouri Gulch. We need to get more creative with these names people!). I found a cliff band below Missouri and followed that towards the little lakes, as I didn’t want to lose more elevation than necessary. Here’s the path I took hugging Missouri
At the cliff band I descended the least amount possible, heading towards the lakes
Here’s looking back at Elkhead Pass and the way down (don’t drop lower than necessary: there’s a trail that takes you all the way to the bottom; avoid that).
The area between Missouri and Emerald was mucky
There are several ways to gain Emerald’s ridge. There was snow surrounding the access area to the south, so I went a little further north and took this path, avoiding the lakes and snow as much as possible.
Here’s a look back at the route and Elkhead Pass
Once I gained the ridge I turned right (west) and followed a faint trail up the ridge. (Note: the standard route up is the dotted line. I did not take this route because I wanted to avoid kicking in steps in the snow: I wasn’t sure my feet would appreciate that today)
Instead I skirted the mountain to the northwest to the saddle between Emerald and Iowa and summited via Emerald’s north slopes
The last 500 feet or so to the summit were filled with scree/talus and tons of goat/social trails. Just aim for the ridge
I had a goat watch me the entire way, then disappear when I reached the ridge
From the ridge I turned right (west) and walked my way to the summit
I summited Emerald Peak at 7:20am
Emerald:
Despite the threat of forecasted afternoon storms this morning was beautiful! I looked over to Iowa and back at the route I’d taken thus far. An idea came to me: it looked like similar elevation gain/loss going over Missouri as it did going back over Elkhead pass. I might as well tag Missouri again. I decided to wait and see if the weather held out before making a final decision, but it seemed a draw either way. Oh, and my feet were holding up, so that’s a plus.
The route to Iowa and Missouri was obvious. I headed down Emerald’s north slopes and towards the Emerald/Iowa saddle and up to the summit of Iowa
The hike up to Iowa’s summit was easier than expected; I just stayed to the left of the snow on the ridge. Once again, a goat watched my ascent.
I summited Iowa Peak (an unranked 13er) at 8:10am. You can see Emerald Peak in the background of this picture
Iowa:
The decision had been made: on to Missouri! Initially I tried to descend Iowa too far to the right (east) and had to turn back due to snow I didn’t particularly want to cross. To avoid all snow it was easier just to follow Iowa’s ridge to the Iowa/Missouri saddle.
Looking back at Iowa from the Iowa/Missouri Saddle
The ridge up to Missouri was much, much easier than anticipated. I don’t know if it was the ibuprofen I took on Iowa or just conditioning, but I felt the ridge from Iowa to Missouri wasn’t very challenging at all. In fact, when I made it to the top I’d assumed I was only halfway up, and actually asked the 10 other people I saw as I was approaching “Is this seriously the summit!?!?” (Note to self: not a good question to ask a group exhausted hikers when you aren’t even winded. Tone it down a bit.).
I reached Missouri at 9am and asked one of the other hikers to take my photo because I thought it would look silly setting up my gorillapod.
Missouri:
Missouri had been an added and unexpected bonus peak today, and it has a summit marker!
Here’s a look back on Emerald and Iowa
Knowing I couldn’t let my feet stop moving for long I thanked the photographer for taking my picture and headed back down via Missouri’s northwest ridge. There’s a great trail the entire way from the summit back to the Missouri Gulch Trailhead. Here’s the route of the ridge
The crux area was much easier to navigate than I remember it being when I hiked Missouri last time. This time I could even hold onto the rock face for added stability if needed
Is this rabbit named?
Here’s a look back at the ridge
Exiting the ridge is marked by a cairn (and today a tiny bit of snow). After rounding the corner get ready to do some scree surfing. (Note: if you’re not a fan of scree (who is?), microspikes help provide traction. Seriously, try them on scree, it’ll change your life).
Looking back up at the scree slope to gain the ridge
There were some slight snow fields to cross, but nothing that required traction
From here there’s an obvious trail back down to the gulch.
I met tons of people hiking on the way down from Missouri. It was the perfect day for a 14er, there are 3 in the area, and everyone was out. I made it back to my truck at 11:45am, making this a 14.5 mile hike with 5985’ in elevation gain in 9.5 hours.
My feet did not look pretty when I was done but I was very pleased with today’s hike. I didn’t feel tired, even at the end. My feet successfully made it the entire way without complaining (too much). I think the ups and downs in elevation gain on the ridges gave me little breaks that made all the difference. I’m sure you could do this hike in reverse and feel the same way. I never saw the couple I’d seen at the trailhead in the morning, but I’m hoping they stayed safe and had a fabulous hike as well!
After my failed attempt last week I decided to do more research and try Hagerman again today. I learned the upper road to Lead King Basin had an avalanche about 1 mile after the stream crossing (very close to where I’d parked) so I decided to take the lower road from Marble to Crystal instead. I’d heard a lot of conflicting reports on this road, but when I searched it online I found this video, which was very helpful.
The road itself wasn’t that difficult with a 4WD (I wouldn’t attempt in a 2WD), and my Tundra handled it just fine. The only problems I can foresee would be passing other vehicles. Luckily there are a lot of small turnout areas on this road, especially before and after the committing areas. I drove in at night to ensure I wouldn’t need to pass oncoming vehicles, which I knew would be problematic in my big truck, no matter the size of the other vehicle.
Since I drove in when it was dark I wasn’t able to see the Crystal Mill, but I expected to see it on my way out the next day.
I made it to Crystal around 10pm on a Thursday night and all the lights in the ‘city’ were out. As I passed the Crystal Mill I saw a sign saying Lead King Basin was closed, so I dimmed my lights and parked at the east end of town, mentally calculating the extra mileage and what time I needed to start in the morning. Looks like I was getting about 3.5 hours of sleep.
As I was preparing to go to bed (my lights were out) I saw the lights go on in the second story windows of a cabin across the street. The two story 18th century style wood cabin had two tiny windows upstairs, covered in lace curtains. The light from the windows was glowing pale blue, and I saw the silhouette of a woman walking around. She was wearing a long nightgown and her hair was pinned up in a bun. The woman slowly walked around the room, picking up objects and setting them back down. Then the lights went out.
I set my alarm for 2am. When I woke up I crawled from the back seat into my front seat and started putting on my shoes. I didn’t need to turn on any lights because the full moon was shining bright enough to allow me to see. I saw a fox run down the center of the road, and then noticed the lights in the second story window of the house across the street turn on. Once again I saw the silhouette of a woman walking around. She was wearing a long nightgown and her hair was pinned up in a bun. She slowly walked around the room, picking up objects and setting them back down. Then the lights went out.
Whoa. That was spooky. I knew I hadn’t woken her up because I hadn’t made any noise, opened any doors, turned on any lights, etc. I was going to have to investigate that house in the daylight upon my return because that was just… weird. I mean, what are the chances she was up at 10pm and 2am, just like I was? Also, how many women still wear nightgowns to bed?
Ok, so I was on the trail at 2:15am. It was a 2 mile hike to Lead King Basin along a 4WD road that didn’t offer many turnouts, but was indeed open and my truck could have made it just fine to the trailhead. Oh well, I was getting in 4 extra miles today.
The trailhead was about 2 miles from Crystal. I didn’t see any of this in the dark (these signs seriously need reflective elements to them for us who start before daylight).
There’s a nice junction where you turn left to head up and around the north end of Lead King Basin to Geneva Lake
Here the trail was quite overgrown with flowers, plants, and trees. I thought to myself how it felt a little like being in a rainforest, and how much fun the flowered areas would be on my way back (I’m not a fan of flying-stinging insects, so I was being sarcastic). On the positive side: no mosquitoes!
It was in this area I saw my first ever porcupine on the trail. I see them along the side of the road when I’m driving to trailheads quite a bit, and one time I heard one under my truck at the Grizzly Gulch trailhead and had to fend it off in the middle of the night, but this was the first one I’d encountered on the trail.
He was just sitting there, staring at me. So I talked to him to get him to move. He turned around and waddled ahead of me, staying directly in the middle of the trail. I didn’t really want to follow a porcupine to the lake, so I talked a little louder to him. He scurried into the bushes and I immediately realized the error of my ways: now I couldn’t see him and didn’t know where he was. I didn’t want to experience porcupine quills and all that entails, so I nicely talked to the porcupine in a sing-song voice as I passed where I’d last seen him, crossing my fingers I hadn’t made him mad/scared and that he wasn’t sitting in the bushes: poised to shoot.
Mission “pass the porcupine” accomplished I continued on to the lake. The moon was full and bright so I conserved flashlight battery and hiked by the moonlight. Just as I made it to the lake I heard a faint barking in the distance. I was worried there was a lost dog out there somewhere (hey, it’s happened) but as I rounded the bend to the lake the barking got louder, and then I saw a flashlight turn on. The owner was pointing the flashlight in the direction opposite of me, and the dog was starting to bark really loud. I yelled up at them “It’s just a hiker!” I received no response, but the dog stopped barking and the flashlight turned off. It was about 4:45am. I immediately felt more secure hiking in the dark: I was pretty sure there wasn’t another animal in the area, as that dog would have been alerted to it.
Just north of the lake the trail continues north and then there’s a stream crossing. There were tons of areas to cross here, and all required taking off my shoes. At times the water was knee deep (I’m 5’4”), but mostly it was just high on my shins. Also, it was cold. When I was done my water shoes were quite muddy so I left them on a rock to dry and to pick up later.
This is where my trip report diverges from some of the more popular field guides. I took the 1st west side gully to the southwest ridge.
I crossed the creek and headed north for about 100 yards, looking for a gully to my right (west gully). I’d seen pictures of the access gullies on the east that were still full of snow, so by taking the west side I was hoping to avoid any snow filled gullies. I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s the gully I took:
This gully was steep and loose. I did not feel comfortable sticking to the scree in the middle, so I stuck to the right side where the rocks were larger.
My goal was to gain the ridge as quickly as possible, aiming for this small saddle
Here’s looking back on the route
From the small saddle you can see Hagerman Peak
I turned left (north) and faced a class 3 section and headed up and over the ridge.
At the top of this point I could see the rest of the route before me
It’s important to note if you’re attempting this ridge to start early and make sure you have a large weather window. This ridge is very committing. I went at it slowly and carefully. The rocks here crumble: I’d find a hand hold, grip, and the rock would crumble in my hands. I had to make sure to test out each hold several times before using it to secure myself. Luckily, the ridge was snow free.
This is definitely a ridge you take by… sticking to the ridge. I was able to go directly up and over most areas, dipping to the left or right just a couple of times. As I ascended the rocks stopped crumbling and started tipping a bit (nothing fell, but not much was stable). Here’s the final push to the summit.
I made it to the summit at 9:10am
Hagerman:
I started the ridge at 7:15am and ended at 9:10am, making this a 2 hour ridge to cross. Here’s looking back at the route
The day was absolutely beautiful and it was still early morning so I considered traversing over to nearby 14er Snowmass Mountain. I’d done a lot of research and came up pretty empty with details, but I knew it could be done. I spent quite a bit of time looking around at possible paths before deciding if I was going to attempt traversing or not. I looked at Snowmass Mountain’s east side: nope, that was a no go. Tons of snow and no way I could see to begin from the summit. Next I looked to the left (west). A lot less snow but the shadows weren’t helping much.
I stopped and did a lot of thinking here. I knew the traverse was possible. The rock looked loose, but I could also see goat trails (or maybe those were gullies…). I was confident I could find traction in the dirt. I mentally calculated how much time I had, the weather, and looked for exit strategies in case I got to a place where I couldn’t continue. I decided both time and weather were in my favor today so I decided to go for it.
Note: This may not be the safest way to traverse from Hagerman to 14er Snowmass Mountain. For me and my abilities, it was the safest way on this particular day.
The first move committed me to the traverse: I down climbed about 50 feet of… this. I’m not sure I could have climbed back up this wall. (Ok, I could have or I wouldn’t have climbed down, but it would have been a lot of work).
I turned and looked towards Snowmass Mountain. This is what I saw. So I headed northeast and rounded the corner.
I was taking this one section at a time, focusing on what was directly in front of me but glancing up at the rest of the route every so often to make sure I was on course. I found myself trying to stick to the ridge, but that is not the way to do this traverse: you need to drop down much lower than you want to. Every time I tried to regain elevation I was forced to head back down.
My advice is to descend lower than the saddle, and then take the scree line up to where the trail connects with the east route. The best terrain was consistently 100-200 feet below the ridge.
Once you connect with the ridge where the east route links up you can easily follow the cairns to the summit.
This was a very slow climb. Everything was loose and what wasn’t loose was scree. I took extra time to be careful with each and every step, and kept the entire route in view as often as possible. I most likely made this take longer than necessary, but I stayed safe. I made it to the summit of Snowmass Mountain at 12:50pm, making this a traverse that took over 3.5 hours to complete. Here’s looking back at the route
Summit photo
Summit Video
I spent a lot of time on this bluebird day taking pictures. It’s harder than you think to set an automatic timer and then scramble up to the summit block. It took a few tries… and the ones that actually turned out were fuzzy, so I gave up.
After spending much more time on the summit than necessary I needed to make the decision of how I was going to head back down. I’d been hoping, similar to the west side of Hagerman, that the west side of Snowmass Mountain would be free from snow. No such luck. There was still snow in the gullies.
I did not want to do the traverse back to Hagerman because that and another 3 hour traverse would have been exhausting. I could tell the gullies on the west side of Snowmass Mountain ended/cliffed out in a waterfall area, but I could also see bare rock I could traverse either north or south to connect up where I needed to be. I decided to head down Snowmass Mountain’s west side, but for safety I would slightly alter the traditional route. It was too late in the day to safely take the gullies, so I was going to take the rock rib that wasn’t a rib but a bunch of loose rock that bulged from the mountainside. Here’s the route I took
Do not let these photos fool you: this is where I encountered the loosest rock of the day. These rocks are the size of refrigerators and tables. Every 3rd rock would tip, and I would think to myself: “That’s a lot of rock to tip!” Luckily not one rock actually tipped/fell/tumbled/caused a rock slide.
This was a very slow process but eventually I made it to the waterfall area. My feet were starting to hurt at this point from all the rock work.
The snow ended just at the waterfall and surprisingly I crossed the waterfall pretty easily here and headed down. I made it down to this area at 3:30pm.
The snow started up again after the waterfalls
From here I looked down at the basin, and unfortunately there was a lot of snow covering the trail I was supposed to take back to Geneva Lake. That snow was going to be several feet of mush at this time of day so I decided to traverse south along the mountainside, looking for a safer route down.
I made it here and unfortunately cliffed out yet again… but I could see where I needed to be: That goat trail should get me down.
After searching around for a bit I was able to find a way off this spot by circling the area to the north and down the small cliff
From here I followed the goat trail that went down a forested gully and came out ready to exit and head towards Geneva Lake.
The area through the trees to the stream crossing was wet.
At the stream crossing I reconnected with my water shoes. They were now dry but had been scattered and were now no longer sitting on the rock together but in the grass a few feet apart. I changed out of my shoes into my water shoes and crossed the creek
I’m ashamed to say the creek ate my water shoes. Seriously. The banks were quite muddy and during the last two steps my water shoes got sucked off my feet and into the muck. I spent 20 minutes trying to dig them out with my ice axe, but no dice. I couldn’t find them. They were buried in the banks of the stream. Ugh. From here I sat and put on my shoes and new, dry socks. I looked back at the route I’d taken to Hagerman.
My feet were hurting, and I still had 4 miles to go. Time to hit the trail. I skirted the lake and headed back towards Lead King Basin.
One great part of this hike was being able to see the waterfalls. And, since it was so late in the day: no bees!
At the base of the waterfalls the trail was running with quite a bit of water.
In the daylight I could see the upper 4WD trail to Lead King Basin
This is where my feet really started burning. I was surprised, since I’ve done more challenging hikes with greater mileage/elevation gain than this one, yet my feet were very sore. I made it past the Lead King Basin trailhead as the sun set and each step I took hurt more than the last. I wanted to cry. I’ve never felt foot pain like this. Also, I’d been hoping to stop in Carbondale tonight to get Subway for dinner, but it looked like I wasn’t going to make it back in time for that to happen.
It seemed as if it were taking forever to reach Crystal. I eventually came across a sign that said “Private Property next 2.5 miles” and mentally freaked out for a second. There was NO WAY it was 2.5 miles to Crystal! Not only could I physically not make it 2.5 more miles (My feet! My feet!!!) but I was pretty sure it had been 2 miles to the upper trailhead. Had I been wrong and it’d been 4? Ugh, I needed rest and I needed calories because my mind was playing tricks on me. Luckily it was only half a mile past that sign to the town of Crystal. I finished this hike at 8:45pm, making this a 15.5 mile hike/climb with 6211’ in elevation gain in 18.5 hours.
Read on for gross feet pictures and segue into the next hike…
I limped to my truck and sat down by a small access creek about 1 foot wide on the side of the road. I took off my shoes and gasped: Yuck! My feet had never looked like that before! The heels and pads were completely swollen and red/gray, and very painful to the touch (no blisters though).
I decided to wash them off in the water. I placed them both in at the same time and immediately felt relief, and then 2 seconds later started screaming because they started burning as if I’d placed them into a pot of boiling water. My feet turned bright red and were rendered useless. Seriously.
I couldn’t walk the 5 feet to my truck so I sat there for half an hour in the wet creek bank and thought about what I was going to do. I was supposed to drive to the next trailhead for my hike tomorrow, but doing the math if I left now I would get there and only have 1 hour to sleep before starting again. This hike had taken much longer than anticipated. I’d only had 3 hours of sleep last night so it was a bad idea to try to drive and then hike at this point. Also… my feet. I wasn’t sure they’d function tomorrow. They needed time to dry out. But long distance runners/thru hikers have this stuff happen, right? They just tape them up and hike/run anyway. I decided I was really, really tired and should sleep before attempting anything. I’d adjust my schedule as needed.
I had pain killers but decided not to take them: I wanted to be sure of an accurate pain level when I woke up so I could plan my day accordingly. Unfortunately, I never really made it to bed. I crawled into the cab of my truck, thankful I hadn’t rolled up my sleeping bag this morning. I tried to nap but even though I was exhausted I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep. After 2 hours I gave up and decided to drive home, with the added bonus of doing so in the dark late at night so I most likely wouldn’t need to pass anyone on the shelf road out. My feet had dried out a bit and were raw but less sore. They still overreacted every time I tried to use them. My right foot was healthier than my left; I couldn’t press down on the pedal very hard, so I drove slowly, but I made it.
Oh, and since I’d returned in the dark I never got to see the Crystal Mill, or get a good look at that old house with the lady in the windows…
Wild Wanderer 