The Watchman (attempt)

With a dawn start Pete and I left the Watchman Campground and headed due south. Across the valley sunrise was glowing off the West Temple.

After working south and staying below a line of cliffs we eventually outflanked the red sandstone and looked up at the saddle just south of “North Johnson”.

Spying what we though was the correct ramp system we made our way up loose dirt and rock slopes to the base of the cliffs then started scrambling up and right.

The loose rock was undermining my confidence and combined with the high exposure I wasn’t having a good time. We came across a red rappel sling on a tree and decided someone else hadn’t been especially comfortable here either. Luckily, the going got a little easier and we started to find a few cairns which led us to the sandy wash and the rocky saddle of Johnson Ridge.

Our original goal was to try for the peak called “No Man’s Mountain” for its remote location. Already feeling tired and mentally worn out we changed plans for the closer Watchman.

We could pick out the gully we needed to eventually gain across the way, and I hope we spied the correct ledge system of 4th and low-5th class moves that would bypass the smooth bottom pour-off. Starting down we picked our way from cairn to cairn to the base of the wash separating The Watchman and Johnson Mountain.

We saw a rappel anchor just right of the pour-off and then moved north until we came to what looked like the first reasonable place to ascend. Breaking out the rope and the very light rack I’d bought I started up initially easy slopes.

My early confidence ran into a brick wall as a hit a portion that required a committing move on crumbling holds without good protection. I spent a while reversing myself and looking for a better option.

Eventually I had to admit my unease with this place, and by now “this place” meant more than just The Watchman. Zion’s sandstone had me completely unnerved and unwilling to commit to anything tougher than some easy scrambling. Admitting my condition to Pete after downclimbing, we packed up the rope and headed back up to the gap in Johnson Ridge.

By now all I wanted to do was to get safely off Johnson Ridge and back to camp. Our original plans for 7 or more Zion summits withered in the heat.

It was after noon when we reached camp (thankfully finding another way off Johnson Ridge that avoided the red webbing rappel). All I wanted to do was to sit around and cool off. Pete still had some energy so he returned to the east side of the park and climbed Nippletop solo.

Once he returned we drove into Springdale for dinner, then tried to turn in early but were thwarted by a school group that setup shop not 50 yards from our campsite to sing around a campfire until quiet hours. In the morning we fled Zion and returned to the Front Range after one long drive.

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Progeny Peak

Armed with several days of vacation, Pete and I left the Front Range on Thursday afternoon heading westward. After a dinner stop at the Gore Range Brewery we made it about 30 miles past Green River, Utah when it was time to stop and get some sleep. BLM land just off the highway provided a moon and star-lit night’s sky for us to just throw out our bags and fall asleep.

The morning cast brilliant light on the formations just north of us as I prepared coffee while Pete took a jog.

Four more hours of interstates brought us to Zion National Park where we claimed our reserved campsite then drove to the eastern side of the tunnel to head up “Progeny Peak”.

The temps were warm as we made our way through a dry wash and then started up sandstone aiming for the summit.

A little scrambling on a ramp brought us a good deal higher and closer to the summit.

Picking our way up loose rocks and breakable ledges we eventually reached the huge and gaudy summit cairn.

Looking at the guidebook and maps we started identifying the nearby summits of East Temple, Deer Mountain, Ant Hill, Nippletop and more.

The landscape would have been amazing had I brought my old hiker’s eyes on this trip. My newer climber’s gaze found these summits wanting as ledges and continuous crack systems were missing, replaced only by sandy and loose slopes.

After a suitable pause, we started back down, following nearly the same path as on our ascent. Pete triggered one time-bomb of a breakable shelf, but his fall was minor and just served to remind us of the dangers.

Returning to camp we started to plot for what we’d planned to be another 5 days here.

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McCurdy Peak

John, Renata and I met at the Ute Creek Trailhead on the west side of the Lost Creek Wilderness at 6:30am on Sunday morning. A large storm had hit the Front Range days ago, but snow totals seemed to slack off further west and from nearby monitors I’d gathered that we shouldn’t expect as much new snow here.

With the hours-old daylight savings switch, it was light when we started up the Ute Creek Trail with only small patches of snow. However, as we gained elevation and hit the switch-backs below the Brookside-McCurdy trail junction the snow became more persistent. At the junction we added gaiters to our boots and started post-holing in the 6-8 inches of snow in drifts with occasional patches of wind-swept dry ground. The effort possibly saved by snowshoes would probably have been canceled out by their extra weight and constant application and removal.

After working up the north side of Bison Arm we hoped we’d be done with the deepest accumulation of snow.

Bison Arm was extremely windswept and we motored across its 11,800 foot plus elevation to the south. Strangely, this ridge off Bison Peak was higher than one of the two mountains we had our eyes on today.

Dropping off the south side of Bison Arm, we found somewhat less snow, but still some decent sized drifts and tree-sheltered patches of powder snow. Plus, all this elevation we were losing would have to be regained late in the day on our return.

As we neared the saddle between McCurdy and Bison Peaks we admired the large rock towers while losing the trail.

Once at the pass we discussed our plans and decided to head first up McCurdy Peak. John and Renata had already been up McCurdy, but really enjoyed the summit. Plus we hoped that having reached one peak would help motivate us for the long bushwhack over to unnamed 11180. John took over the postholing duty for the first part of the ascent, but linked balancing on exposed fallen trees to avoid some of the snow.

As we neared the summit plateau we spotted a mountain goat lounging on a rock formation. He didn’t seem too worried about us and watched our passage as we continued south to the summit block.

Before noon we reached the actual summit of McCurdy and took a short break on top.

The unnamed peak 11180 was a bit over a mile away and following a GPS’s direction we headed as straight towards the peak as we could. Along the way we had to detour around a few rock towers before we reached a small saddle with an excellent view of the peak.

Most aspects of the peak looked very technical, but we had information that a mostly scrambling route from the north side of the peak would lead to the summit. From our saddle almost due east of the peak we dropped down a steep slope littered with aspens and enough snow to make the bushwhack a bit of a fight. Eventually we reached the lower saddle due east of the peak and started hiking and scrambling up snow-covered boulders to the hanging garden nested between the various summit towers.

Here we got out a short length of rope and harnesses. I scrambled around trying to find the best route to the summit and when I realized I was too far east John traversed below the cliffs and found the correct ascent gully.

There was a little snow and a few patches of ice in the gully but mostly it presented easy scrambling. The few harder moves we “protected” by spotting each other and we were soon on the summit without ever having used the rope.

We reversed our ropes and again spotted one another at the crux spots. Then we repeated our bushwhack in reverse back up to the little saddle.

From here we decided to contour around the north side of McCurdy Peak back to the McCurdy-Bison saddle. It ended up taking us an hour due to the 6-8 inches of snow covering everything from willows and creeks, to slab rocks and downed trees. Once at the saddle we picked up our old tracks just as the sun was setting.

Here we also found recent tracks from another hiker and their dog, following our early footprints. Behind us a full moon was rising over McCurdy Peak and helped lessen any nervousness I had about following our tracks through the intermittent snow back over Bison Arm.

The 500 foot gain back up Bison Arm was a slow crawl for our tired party. My mind wandered far while I nursed an aching achilles tendon up hill. I tried hard to appreciate the beauty of the moon rise over the alpine landscape littered with rock towers. The sun’s last rays on wind crusted snow recalled all the recent photos I’d seen of polar journeys. And the disappearing and reappearing footprints of the hiker and his dog ahead of us, combined with yesterday’s Halloween and today’s full moon had me imaging we were following the devil and a hell hound. Humm, maybe when we reached the crossroads I could trade my soul for some more water, of which I was nearly out.

Entirely without headlamps we made the hike up and over Bison Arm and then found our old tracks on the trail. The downhill quickly restored our flagging energies and a little after 6pm we were forced to resort to headlamps due to the trees and the north aspect blocking the moon’s light.

It was after 8pm by the time we finally finished the hike, making for an over-13 hour day. John and Renata didn’t believe me when I said I’d already decided not to hike the following day (my original plan), but I was already dreaming of sleeping in and then a large breakfast of eggs and potatoes when I did wake up.

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Lincoln Falls Ice

With a foot or more of new snow on the Front Range Jenn, Jeremy and I decided rock climbing was out, so we went up to Lincoln Falls in Park county to check out the ice climbing.

Two other parties were already at the main flow when we arrived. The first continued up for a couple pitches.

Jeremy and I scrambled around on the right side of the flow, and were able to get above the first pitch to setup a top-rope anchor.

This being our first ice climbing of the season, none of us were super motivated to lead and were happy to just work out the kinks of our stale technique on top rope.

The pair of climbers next to us contained one ice newby, so we both setup top-ropes then traded off for more variety.

The ice was pretty well formed, but had some flowing water underneath in a few spots. One interesting spot was termed the “window” for the view behind the ice to the flowing stream. Lower down, some water was seeping though the ice and would ball up on crampons if not avoided.

After several laps each we broke down the anchor and hiked away from the now crowded spot. Seems a lot of other people had the same idea.

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Cone Master

For Sunday’s hike Pete and I selected Kenosha Pass because it had the best forecast of anywhere within a two hour’s drive. Plus, I’d driven over the pass the day prior and saw no snow so we guessed we’d have an easy hike. “Cone Master” is guidebook author Gerry Roach’s name for the 3-peak link up we’d be attempting.

Pete was able to drive a couple miles past the pass itself towards our first peak, North Twin Cone Peak, to the first switchback at 10,400 feet. We could have driven even further, but still wanted to get in some miles today.

Following the road up we felt it was much warmer than forecasted, but eventually hit colder air and a bit of wind above treeline.

The sun intermittently poked out of clouds that seemed to stay on all the 13′ers in sight. Our little 12,000+ foot peaks were blessed with fewer clouds and less snow.

We left the 4wd road and scrambled directly up to the summit of North Twin Cone Peak for our first summit of the day.

I found a summit register tucked between rocks near the communication tower, but a quick perusal of the contents showed 4wd enthusiasts were the main contributors. Not really caring to add our names to that crowd, we left the register unsigned and headed towards Mount Blaine.

A little rock hoping and some light bushwhacking through willows brought out the comment that the willows in these alpine tundra regions of the Lost Creek were never that bad. There was always a nice trail through them. Of course, we’d have reason to regret that comment later.

However, the rest of the hike to Mount Blaine’s unranked summit went smoothly and we were soon checking out the interesting rocks on the top.

We still had a bit of a hike to the highest peak of the day, South Twin Cone Peak.

We struggled a bit more through the willows at its base – finding a few places where we had to push through and no decent trail existed. Still, it wasn’t bad (yet) and we continued up open slopes.

Knowing we’d have to face into the wind on our descent, we added extra layers before starting off the summit and aiming for the willow mess below.

Here we hit the real crux of the day – willows well over human height that consisted of a few dead-ending passages and lots of boggy terrain. Instead of staying high around them we bullheadedly pushed on through and cussed the resilient plants. Pete finally came up with a full-body tackle method of getting by, but I wasn’t really sure whether the plant or the person came out on top.

Eventually we reached the 4wd road again and finished up the hike in willow-free bliss.

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McCurdy Park peaks (again)

John, Renata and I originally planned to go after the peak 11180, which had a small technical section and resided just NE of McCurdy Peak in the Lost Creek Wilderness. However, new snow in the last week meant the long approach from the Twin Eagles trailhead meant we had to shorten our objectives. I’d already climbed the closer peak 11460 just two weeks before, but didn’t mind repeating it.

While on the approach hike of the Brookside-McCurdy trail we ran into two separate groups of backpackers who were completing a large loop starting from the Goose Creek Trailhead. The second group greeted us with the strange question:

“Are you food?”

While wondering about the possibility of their cannibalistic tendencies, I tried to rephrase their question “Do you need food? Are you out?” Turns out they half expected to run into someone out here from an online forum who went by the handle “Food”.

We took a different line to the summit than Pete and I had two weeks prior, we stayed lower in the woods trying to avoid the boulders that would have been really treacherous with the dusting of snow. A little hunting around and we found the base of our climb and I led up with one mitten and one glove then worked on rewarming myself on top while belaying John and Renata up. A short rappel took us back down where we were soon walking in the sun and warming up again.

With evening plans we couldn’t go after McCurdy Peak or 11180, so we all decided to repeat 11762.

After a quick lunch in a sunny and somewhat wind sheltered spot near the summit, we made the several hour return trip to the trailhead.

Wigwam Peaks

Armed with a perfect weather forecast I decided to take a Monday off and go into peak-bagger mode. For a goal, I chose 5 peaks on the southeast side of the Lost Creek Wilderness, all unnamed.

A bit after 7am I left the Wigwam trailhead, walked the Wigwam trail for nearly 2 minutes, then headed straight up the slopes to my right aiming for “The Wigwam” a 9,500 foot peak.

This first peak would take 1,100 feet of climbing and a bit of scrambling as I worked my way around some cliffs and a few false summits. From the top I had a nice view up the Wigwam Creek drainage.

I headed west off the summit and then found myself plunge stepping down a bowl of eroded South Platte pebbles. I expected to find the trail before I reached Wigwam Creek, but came out in the one brief spot where the trail had crossed to the south side of the creek. After making the crossing I emptied my shoes and started hiking up the valley.

I accumulated another 1,000 feet of gain (2,100ft total so far) in the hike up the valley, but passed the time admiring the rock formations off the trail.

A large beaver pond marked the junction of the Wigwam and Goose Creek trails and I turned south on the Goose Creek.

Again, I didn’t stay long on the trail but soon made another right turn up mostly open forest gaining elevation on the east, then south-facing slopes leading to “Wigwam Park Peak” and it’s 11,180 foot summit. That was good for almost another 1,700 feet (3,800 feet running total). From the summit I had a view west of other granite domes and white-capped peaks farther away.

Also from the summit I could see east towards 10,620, my next goal.

I descended somewhat east and northeast off the summit, hit the Goose Creek trail and then started up 10620’s west slopes for another 800 feet of gain. Thankfully a few clouds rolled by and offered some shade. Those same clouds also violated the 0% chance of precipitation in my forecast by dropping a couple of snow flakes or rain drops. I couldn’t tell what they were and they stopped quickly enough.

Behind the cloud was a horizon of blue sky, so I kept going and soon found 10620’s summit boulders, which provided some nice 3rd class scrambling.

Most impressive were the large rock fins just south of “Wigwam Park Peak” across the valley.

The view south was a little discouraging. My next two summits along this ridge (10605 and 10654) looked a long ways off.

At first the descent off 10620 went well, but then I began to hit a field of closely spaced aspens that forced me to push through.

Aspens gave way to a burned area and I soon found 10605’s summit after a 300 ft gain from the saddle.

After leaving 10605 and continuing south I stayed west of the ridge crest to avoid some cliffs and spent a fair amount of time backtracking and hunting out the best path between car-sized boulders. Once at the next saddle, I had another 600 feet to gain to my last summit and was seriously slowing down by now.

A bit after 2pm I finally reached 10654, and was as far from my car as I’d been all day. The shortest way back involved dropping off to the east and “bushwhacking” through a burned area, side-hilling to avoid private property. If I’d had a few waypoints in my GPS I might have taken this option. Instead, part of me wanted to hike all of the Goose Creek Trail and I was frankly sick of bushwhacking now.

So I headed north back to the saddle between 10605 and 10654 then dropped west into Goose Creek. I’d already done 5,500 feet of gain today and was nearly out of water. Plus, I knew I was facing another 1,000 feet of climbing on the Goose Creek trail itself before the long downhill stretch back to the Wigwam trailhead.

It took nearly two hours (including a water break at a creek) before I hit the trail and knew I didn’t really have to think anymore. Still, the sunny warm day was a painful liability on the 1,000 foot climb with little shade to the saddle between Goose and Wigwam creeks.

I barely even noticed the formations as I death-marched on by.

Life was slowly restored as I crossed into the Wigwam drainage and into shade. Propelled along by the downhill course, I started drinking and eating again.

By the time I left the Goose Creek Trail I was enjoying the hike again, even with it’s over 6,500 feet of elevation gain. Still, almost every other peak I’ve climbed this year has been one I’d repeat, but I can’t imagine returning to these summits again. Backpacking or hiking on these trails – I’d certainly return for that.

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Whitney Peak

At 4:35am in a Walmart parking lot Pete and I squared off in a strange tactical game of blinking and yawning. The object was to convince the other person that we were the more tired so that they’d volunteer to drive. Our yawning match proved a stalemate and Pete broke protocol by blatantly suggesting I drive.

Or maybe he was returning to our old protocol of alternating drivers, a scheme that had been more honored in the breach lately. Regardless, we loaded up and I tried to wake up with a thermos of coffee as we headed over the divide and to the Holy Cross Wilderness.

A little after sun-up we were hiking up the Holy Cross Road (a very rough 4wd road) and passing a few spots of snow. As we neared the wilderness boundary the snow grew much deeper and we decided to leave the trail and walk on the sunny side of the valley.

We navigated through pines and tried to avoid the deeper sections of snow as much as possible by staying high on the slopes of Whitney Peak. It probably would have made a lot of sense to head straight up Whitney’s sunny south slopes, but we enjoy hiking because its unreasonable.

We continued to gain height in the French Creek valley which also equated to running into more snow.

We found suggestions of the trail where it crossed back to our side of the valley near the start of the Seven Sisters Lakes. I’ll bet this place is really pretty in July when the wildflowers are out.

After a break we started up Fall Creek Pass, but not really following the trail.

From near the pass we headed up the northwest slopes of Whitney Peak, zigzagging to link the more windblown sections of shallower snow. Along the way up the views of the Gore Range reminded me of all the unclimbed peaks I have left in that range. Furthermore, once we hit the west summit of Whitney Peak, the Temmile-Mosquito, parts of the Sawatch and a huge number of Elk range peaks dominated the horizons.

This western summit wasn’t the true highpoint, so we headed east towards the true summit and a stack of lenticular clouds over the front range.

The true summit is a large block just tall enough that you actually have to make a few climbing moves to reach the top.

I’d brought a short length of rope, which was easily tossed over the top, and Pete put me on belay from the other side of the boulder. I did a quick hop and mantle move and was on the summit.

We switch positions and Pete tried the same trick but found it hard to commit to the move while giving up a couple inches in height to me. We found another climbable option and Pete quickly sent that route.

Our mission accomplished, we decided to avoid the snow slog through the valley and took the south slopes straight back to the 4wd road.

Right after we hit the road we heard a strange motorized noise then saw the type of vehicle required to travel this road.

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Redgarden Wall

Original plans to travel far from town for the weekend broke down and Jeremy and I decided to hit some several pitch trad classics in Eldo. He’d recently climbed Rewritten (5.7) on the Redgarden Wall so directed us back to that area. We were looking at a couple easier climbs, but first had to reach the Red Ledge. Jeremy suggested climbing The Zot Face (5.8) and I took the first lead. The rock was shaded and morning still cool and my fingers were numb by the time I reached the crux. I placed a couple cams and then hung on the rope while rewarming my digits. Finally, I moved through the crux quickly and made several pauses on the rest of the pitch to reheat my fingers.

Jeremy followed and brought the sun onto the rock with his ascent.

Jeremy took the next short pitch to gain the Red Ledge (5.3). Since it was so short I let him take the next pitch on the left hand variation to Swanson Arete. I followed, then took the lead for the next pitch of this 5.5 climb. Looking up, the climbing looked harder at first glance with a few roofs.

However, an abundance of good holds kept the climbing reasonable and there was plenty of protection available.

From the top of the tower I had a conversation with another group finishing the Yellow Spur (5.9), the last pitch of which we’d be doing soon.

First, we had to make 3 rappels back down to the Red Ledge.

It was Jeremy’s turn to lead, so after another group went by he started up Icarus (5.6) and quickly found it true to its run-out nature. On my pitch I stayed further left than the normal variation to follow a crack where it looked like I could place a few more pieces.

Jeremy got to lead our final pitch of the day, the wildly exposed finish to the Yellow Spur.

Then we made 4 rappels back to the base to find it was already 5:30p and time to head home.

McCurdy Park peaks

The weekend on the front range had been cold and wet with forecasted sun and higher temps never arriving. Not knowing what to expect in the Lost Creek Wilderness, I had way too much in my pack as we left the Twin Eagles Trailhead.

The curving Brookside-McCurdy trail led us around private property and through aspen stands freshly denuded. We pondered how beautiful this spot would have been a couple weeks ago. At least the natural arch never fades.

About 5 miles in we reached a saddle and junction with the McCurdy Park trail. I queried Pete to see if he wanted to take a short detour to ranked peak 11762. In a role reversal, Pete decided he’d rather nap and watch our climbing gear while I made the trek. Plus, Pete had climbed 11762 previously.

I left much of my gear and fast hiked off on the McCurdy Park trail to a saddle and a view of the treeless slopes on 11762.

Turning left I headed up hill and soon scrambled onto the summit boulders.

The wind threatened to push me off the summit, so I left and once I hit the trail I began a slow jog back. Speeding up as I descended I reached Pete after 45 minutes (and a thousand feet up and back down).

Pete debated whether he was more tired than if he hadn’t taken that short nap as we countoured around the rock towers to the east, aiming for the ranked peak 11460.

The rock formations were amazing and I was thinking about coming back with a full rack and rope some day in the future.

A little scouting and a little trusting of the GPS brought us to the final obstacle to 11460’s summit. The short (40 foot) climb was technically easy, rated about 5.4, and I climbed on only a tiny half rope and placed just two cams before reaching the slung rappel boulder. Pete quickly followed and kidded around for the camera.

The rock formations in view from the top were phenomenal and we could even see into Goose Creek where we’d been just a couple weeks before.

Pete surfed the summit and we signed the register (again, we pretty much knew everyone who had signed it since the late 90’s).

We rappelled the short climb to return to our packs.

Descending towards the south we hit an open marsh with some intriguing rock spires.

A compass bearing of due east took us fairly efficiently towards our next goal – peak 11328.

We found some fun scrambling to reach the summit, including the large 4th class summit boulder itself.

In a case of not wanting to downclimb what we’d come up, we hunted around for the best way off the summit that didn’t involve a short section of overhanging rock. Finally, we pieced together the best route which included a little cave to crawl through.

The spires near the marsh made a perfect landmark for our return trip.

Then we continued the bushwhack west and then southwest eventually hitting the Brookside-McCurdy trail again. A few back-lit aspens provided some company on the return hike.

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