I was checking weather forecasts and old trip reports looking for a suitable goal for Saturday’s outing, when Dwight posted that he was headed to Kataka Mountain in the Mount Evans Wilderness and was looking for partners. Steve and I both jumped aboard and the next morning found us all departing from the Threemile Creek Trailhead.
The trail was well beaten down and not too icy so snowshoes stayed hanging heavily on our packs. We made good time until the tracks of dayhikers ran out and we had to start breaking trail ourselves.
Thankfully we had brought the snowshoes as the snow was piled up in the creek bottom we were ascending. Even with the extra floatation, the leader would sink in to their knees on occasion and we swapped leads frequently.
Ahead we could see the valley fork and after pulling out maps and re-calibrating GPS units we figured out it was time to leave the creek. Steve probed for a way across the creek, brushing snow off wet rocks.
Thankfully, we all made the crossing without getting wet feet (which might have ended our day right there), but I had to stop and knock a few pounds of freezing slush off my snowshoes on the other side. From the creek we began to ascend straight up the south side of Kataka Mountain through a forest of young aspens.
We took a break at some bare ground with a short reprieve from the deeper snow then headed back into the woods.
Soon we reached some rocks and came near treeline.
As the slopes opened up the sun actually came out (an event we hadn’t expected given the forecast) and the snow was wind blown and thin.
The wind was also stronger here above treeline so I stopped to don extra layers before we reached the summit at 12,441 feet.
We had some excellent views of Bierstadt and Evans as well as Squaretop and Wilcox (the latter two peaks I climbed back in September).
We didn’t spend much time in this windy place, and soon rushed down the southwest side of Kataka towards a forested summit known as Arrowhead Mountain.
Since completing all the ranked and named peaks in the Lost Creek Wilderness, Dwight had set a new goal of reaching all the peaks in the Mount Evans Wilderness. Arrowhead wasn’t ranked (ie, it didn’t rise at least 300 feet from its connecting saddle with Kataka), but it was named.
After plowing downhill through soft snow we reached the long ridge connecting us to Arrowhead. Here we found wildly varying snow conditions. In places a supportable crust kept us comfortably walking on top of the snow. In too many other places the crust would pretend to be solid until we set our weight on our forward foot then we’d wallow in the soft powder below. And finally, there were many spots of soft powder with no pretensions of a crust at all.
A couple times we even experienced a whoompf as we stepped onto a crust and a buried layer of weak snow collapsed. Thankfully, we were on very low angled slopes, as this indicates high possibilities for avalanches.
At 2pm we were still a ways from Arrowhead with the GPS’s giving us the sad news that at the speed we were moving, it would be another hour to reach the summit. We decided to bail on our second peak of the day and descended straight down the slopes, enjoying the quick gliding movement and eventually reaching Threemile Creek again.
After crossing the creek we found the well-beaten trail we’d come up in the morning and quickly hiked out back to the trailhead.
Complete Photo Gallery
