Helen and I had set out to climb Mount Guyot back in March, but Helen was still recovering from the flu, so we turned it into an avalanche beacon practice day.
On Memorial Day, I’d taken Torrey towards Mount Guyot, but bad weather (whiteout over 12,000 feet) turned us back.
Hoping that the third time’s the charm and that Helen was sufficiently recovered from a bad allergy attack, we left the trailhead on a beautiful Saturday morning with our skis.
A short hike took us to the unplowed Little French Gulch Road where we were able to clip into our skis and begin skinning up towards Mount Guyot’s north side. Soon we broke out of tree line and began ascending steeper slopes. Looking backwards we had amazing views of the northern Tenmile range and the Gore range.
It had been a clear night with temperatures at and below freezing, so the snow was solid as we skinned up. When we reached sunny slopes the temperatures really warmed up and I felt I was dressed more for the desert than the mountains.
The snow slope was mostly around 30-35 degrees, but a few steeper sections measured about 40 degrees. My skins refused to keep me from slipping backwards so I took off and shouldered the skis, kicking boot steps into the firm snow. Helen was more persistent and worked hard to keep full skin contact with the snow and continue upward progress.
Around 12,800 feet, I decided to cache my skis near some rocks. There was still ski-able snow above us, but I was tired of carrying those heavy planks. Helen, somewhat reluctantly, decided to also cache her skis. We took the skins off so the skis would be ready for the downhill run once we returned from the summit.
Going up to the summit we had a choice of falling over loose rocks or kicking steps up the snow we wouldn’t ski. We made the snow ascent a practice session for Helen to learn more about proper movement on steep snow (rest steps, when to move the ice axe, how to kick steps and make switchback turns). It was great practice, and probably something we should have done before our Mount Whitney trip.
Eventually, the snow ran out and we had to pass through the loose rocks and rotten snow to reach the summit ridge.
Torrey and I reached the ridge and I noticed that it had large cornices overhanging the opposite site. Torrey was wandering far to close to the edge and after a few frantic moments I was able to corral her and wait for Helen to show up with the leash.
A short walk took us to the summit with great views of Pikes Peak and the Sangre de Cristo range to the south, the Sawatch, Mosquito, Tenmile and Mount of the Holy Cross to the west, the Gore range to the north and the Front range to the east. A few lenticular clouds had built over the higher summits (Silverheels, Grays & Torreys, Evans & Bierstadt) but otherwise it was a perfect, blue ski day.
A group of other skiers showed up while we were admiring the view. They had skinned up Bald Mountain (to our west), then skied down its east side and then climbed Guyot and would ski our descent route back to their cars. We chatted for a few minutes then we all descended back to the ski-able snow.
The other group were able to ski from the top of the snow field, while Helen and I had to descend a few hundred feet back to our skis. Helen was disappointed at missing out on a few turns and will probably carry her skis farther up than I do in the future. Torrey still behaves badly when we’re skiing, so Helen held her tight while I made a few turns downhill. She then released Torrey hoping she’d come all the way to me, where I would contain the pup while she skied down to us. Unfortunately, Torrey ran partway down then seemed unsure who she wanted to be by. Finally, Helen took off downhill toward me and Torrey gave chase. Helen skied as fast as she could to keep away from Torrey (who can be cut by the ski edges).
Given Torrey’s indecision on that first “pitch” of our ski descent, Helen went down first while I struggled to maintain a hold on the wild puppy. A slow count to 10 after Helen disappeared over a lip and I let Torrey go who shot off like a rocket downslope. I followed and could witness the race below as Helen speed on trying to keep ahead of Torrey.
Finally, we made it back to the lower-angled road and skied until we ran out of snow. Packing away the skis we hiked back to the car glad to have finally climbed Mt Guyot.
