Mount Evans 9-30-2011

Mileage – 4.25 miles

Elevation Gain – 2000 ft

Difficulty – Class 2

Leave Summit Lake – 6:45am

Summit of Evans – 9:00am

15 minutes on summit

Back at Summit Lake – 10:00am

After a quick drive up to Summit Lake last week with Aimee (to look at the changing aspens, if you can believe that I did that) I knew I had to get back up there and summit that big old mountain. I had not been up to the Mount Evans area since I was a kid and I forgot what it even looked like.  Oh, what a great hike it would be if they did not put that damn road there. Nevertheless, the road is there and there is nothing I can do about it. Therefore, I might as well use said road to obtain a pre-work summit.

I arrived at Summit Lake in the pre-dawn hour. Just look at all of those lazy people sleeping down in Denver.

 

The hike entailed a loop starting at Summit Lake, up the west ridge to Mount Spaulding, up to Mount Evans, and down the northeast face to return to Summit Lake. The hike up to Mount Spaulding was the same as the first hour of every 14er hike. It was hard, uphill, and made me want to turn around.

After summiting Spaulding, I descended the Spaulding/Evans saddle. Here I got some good shots of the east ridge of Bierstadt and the sawtooth.

I scrambled up the ridge (leaving the standard route behind) most of the way to Evans. I may or may not have summited West Evans also but I will have to check my map. The summit of Evans was windy. It was pretty cool having the summit of a 14er all to myself, especially since there is a road to the top.

There were mountain goats patrolling the summit parking lot on my down and the northeast face was a short and sweet descent.

 Looking back on the summit.

 

Overall, it was a great hike. The only missing factor was (of course) Maggie Mae. The rangers up there frown on dogs of leash and Maggie frowns on hiking with leashes so she had to sit this one out.

If the weather holds, I may be able to finish off the Front Range, mosquito range, and ten-mile range 14ers by the end of the year.

Hell, even if the weather does not hold it might happen.

DeCaLiBron Part 2

I took off from the trailhead at 5:30am. The hike up to the Democrat/Cameron saddle was familiar and I was excited to turn right up to Cameron instead of turning left up to Democrat. This also put me ahead of all the other hikers and allowed me to have all three summits to myself. I was unable to beat my previous time of one hour from trailhead to saddle. Therefore, I can only assume this is the current world record time.

The trek up to the summit of Cameron was tough. I felt that it took me at least an hour but I was pleasantly surprised to summit at 7am. The summit of Cameron is as flat as a pancake with no features.

Lincoln seemed far, far away from the summit of Cameron but I was on top in no time (7:30am). Lincoln was much more of a “mountain” summit as it was very prominent. There were also two USGS markers on the summit.

From Lincoln you must descend down to the Lincoln/Bross saddle. The ascent of Bross is very unappealing. Bross is a mining meca so it is littered with mines and the roads needed to get the workers to these mines. In fact, the trail up Bross is more of a jeep road than trail. I gained the summit of Bross at 8:00am.

The descent of Bross is miserable. The trail is steep and it is littered with small loose rocks. If not careful, you can slip very easily. This loose talus slope is the majority of the descent. Finally, I left the slopes of Bross for the remainder of the hike back to Kite Lake.

I reached the car at 9:15am for a total time of 3 hours and 45 minutes. Pretty good considering my first 14er took something around 8 hours. On the drive home, I stumbled across a pair of baby foxes and I tried to get a couple pictures.

Mount Bancroft 8-15-11

Bancroft

Much like Captain Ahab’s obsession with a certain white whale, I had visions of Mount Bancroft haunting my dreams. This Monday I was able to finally quench my thirst.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Date – May 17^th 2011

The Crew – Fox, Becky, Jimmy, Josh Kirk, and myself

The plan – A spring ascent of Mount Bancroft

Outcome – You’ll see

The idea of an ascent of Mount Bancroft was proposed to me by Josh Fox (REI Outreach Coordinator) when I inquired about class 3 or 4 climbs.

Wait, you don’t know what class 3 or 4 climbing is? Ok I’ll break it down for you:

Class 1 – Hiking on a trail or the parking lot at the mall. A fall here is embarrassing and I will laugh at you.

Class 2 – off trail (but not lost) hiking. A fall here will hurt.

Class 3 – “scrambling” or beginning to climb, you are using handholds for movement but you don’t have to look hard to find them. A fall here will not end in death but will ruin your day

Class 4 – not only are you using your hands for all upward and forward movement but you have to ssek out and test every hold. A fall could end in death.

Class 5 – Rock Climbing, you use a rope because if you fall I will go through your pack and steal your stuff……oh and you die.

Bancroft combines class 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 climbing.

Plans were instantly put together for a May ascent. Bags were packed, inadequate summer tents were brought, and by 7am, we were on our way. The drive to Mount Bancroft is short and sweet and we arrived at the road to the trailhead in about an hour. Due to it being May in Colorado the ground was covered in a weird cold substance sometimes referred to as snow. Without any discussion Fox guns his (unknown to us) non 4x4 truck down the snow covered 4x4 road to the trailhead. Roughly, 100 yards later our chariot has comfortably settled to its doors in the aforementioned snow.

Sigh…….

8 hours later (6 of which involved arduous digging), a very nice man from Scorpion Towing pulled us from our icy grave. A big thanks to Becky for having AAA. We licked our wounds at Tommyknockers in Idaho Springs and we all vowed to never speak to Fox again.

Fast-forward to August 15^th 2011

7am – Jimmy, Fox (ok we spoke to him again), and myself arrive at the scene of the May incident. No snow to be seen but the road is rough so we park 2 miles further away than originally planned. Becky had camped at Loch Lomond the night before and we met up with her around 8am. I couldn’t help but point out that our destination was nowhere to be found.

We slowly worked our way (with no trail) up the slopes to Bancroft’s east ridge.

At this point, we were unsure if we would continue due to the fog but we figured we would hop along the ridge for a while and play it by ear. After some fun class 4 climbing (a total oxymoron), we happened upon the notch in the ridge that would require us to rappel. Oh, did I forget to mention on top of miles of class 4 climbing this mountain includes an 80ft rappel and a free climb of 40 ft, 5.2 rated vertical face. So out came the rope and harnesses, and down we went.

The climb up the 5.2 face was not as bad as I thought. Although I did have a hard time on the last move which had a lot of exposure. Fox had to talk me up it. After regaining the ridge from the notch, we simply had 2 hours of sustained class 4 climbing along the ridge before the summit. There were times were a slip could have ended very badly and to make matters worse there was a lot of loose rock. After many prayers, swears, and muttering “I’m never climbing a mountain again” we arrived on the summit.  

The descent was nasty. All off trail class 2 hiking with loose rock that varied from boulder size to pebbles. I was very happy when we got down to the road.

I took some video with my new Contour helmet camera. It was my first time using it so the video is not the best.

I can’t say this hike left me comfortable on class 4 routes, but it did leave me with the confidence to know I can complete them. After all, when one gets comfortable the level of attention drops and mistakes can happen. I’ll take a pounding heartbeat, shortness of breath, and shaking limbs over a fall off the mountain any day.

DeCaLiBron (minus the CaLiBron) 8-8-11

Well……the plan was to summit four 14ers in one day.

3am – alarm goes off and snooze button is pressed

3:15am – out of shower, wake up Aimee, get dressed

3:30am – phone rings, Blake is sick

3:31am – Aimee is sick

3:45am – Maggie and I leave for 14er quest

*NOTE – I left my camera at home so all pictures are via cell phone

Maggie and I hit the trail at 6am. I believe I have a new appreciation for the alpine start after this hike. For those of you scratching your head an alpine start is when you start at pre-dawn to ensure you miss afternoon thunderstorms and falling seracs. Now 6am is no alpine start but it is early. I hiked most of the way in the shadow of Mount Bross. The sun had not hit me until the Democrat/Lincoln saddle. I was not hot and it was nice and cool. I think earlier alpine starts are in my future.

Once we gained the saddle Maggie and I headed up the ridge to Democrat. This was trail was much more class 2 than we had have ever been on and Maggie was not enjoying her climb. We summited at 7:30am.

I am not flicking off the camera in this shot. I was trying to show number one to represent the first of four 14ers.

After having our bowl of dog food (I had jerky) and water we headed down to begin the ridge up Cameron. On the way down it was apparent Maggie was not enjoying the rock hoping and I knew the descent down Bross was a miserable loose rock slope. Once back at the Democrat/Lincoln saddle I decided to call it a day on account of Maggie’s enjoyment.

Could she have done them all – YES

Would she have done them all – YES

Was there a chance she would have been uncomfortable or gotten hurt – YES

I may put myself in danger but NOT Maggie. If you have a problem with this, I WILL FIGHT YOU!

We made it back to the trailhead at 9am.

On a side note, a three-hour time on a five mile 2,500ft trip is a personal best for me. The more I hike, ride my bike, or just stay active the more I seem to be able to enjoy my hobbies.

I will finish the DeCaLiBron soon!

Missouri Lakes 7/25/11 - 7/27/11

REI staff trip!

I had heard the rumors. Before I was one week on the job, I was informed of the infamous 2010 staff trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Most of the staff attended this trip and I (the new guy) was left to tend to the store. The stories when the staff returned filled me with jealousy. Therefore, I knew I would not miss the next one. Fast forward one year and if I am not to bold to say the 2011 trip was a rousing success.

In order to, as the Boy Scouts say, “be prepared” and to not look the fool in front of my knowledgeable coworkers, I decided to pack at midnight the night before we were scheduled to leave at 6am. Now this may seem a bit irresponsible to you but I am here typing this so I must have survived. After gathering the troops and carb loading at Burger King, we arrived at the Missouri lakes trailhead at 10am. Well not the actual trailhead as the road had washed out and was closed about half a mile before the trailhead. Not to be detoured we loaded up our packs and prepared for the four miles and 2000ft of elevation that lay ahead of us to what would become our camp.

We stopped to marvel at what would be the first of many waterfalls.

The hike into the lakes was uneventful. We stopped to eat lunch at the lower lake and rest a bit.

We trudged on to the highest lake and we were treated with our first view of Missouri pass and the following was muttered by some if not all of the group.

“look at all that snow”

“where is the trail?

“we have to go over that”

The only sensible thing to do was to send out a scout. A few members of the group dropped packs and ran up the pass. Word came down from the pass that there was no sensible spot to camp on the other side so the high lake became our camp.

Now there are many different accounts of what happened this first night. Some say a surprising amount of adult beverages appeared from different packs. Some say the cool and casual demeanor of the group was altered into that of a burning man concert. I (of course) cannot comment as I found a soup kitchen just down the trail and volunteered for the night.

Our second day saw the departure of the half of the group that did not have the foresight to request off four days. The weather was not looking good so we decided to remain in camp another night. However, just because my tent stayed put did not mean I had to and after all those snow fields on Missouri pass looked too good to pass up. The views from the top of the pass were worth the trip alone.

 Walking back down the pass did not seem that appealing so we opted to glissade down instead.

While the rest of my lazy, slothful crew napped away the afternoon I hiked down to the largest lake and put to use the fly rod I packed up here. The fish were small and eager but I to was feeling lazy and did not size down my presentation so no fish were brought to shore.

As the weather turned from bad to worse, we quickly made dinner and retreated to our tents just as the rain clouds opened up. If the weather allowed we would head over the pass in the morning and complete the loop back to our trailhead.

I awoke at 6am to blue skies. My spirits were raised and I was looking forward to a little sunshine. Unfortunately, 6am was our weather window for the day and by 7am the black clouds had returned and any hope of hiking ridgelines above tree line was put to bed. We would not let the weather spoil all of our fun so we hiked to a nearby waterfall and tested the water temperature.

While the water temperature was cool, it was not cold enough to keep us from jumping into the lake below the waterfall. 

(I will spare you these photos as we have all seen me in my underwear enough)

With our hopes of conquering the pass shattered by weather, we made good time back down the trail. I stopped to take a few pictures of some of the bridges along the trail.

Back at the car, we loaded up and headed to the Dillon Dam Brewery for the requisite post-hike burger and beer.

When one does not meet ones goals it is easy to get discouraged but sometimes in life, the journey is more important than the destination. On this trip, I would have to agree. We may have not achieved our end goal but we sure as hell enjoyed the ride.