Several months had passed since Helen and I had hiked together and a late day cancellation of my Sunday plans put us together for an Easter egg hunt near Guanella Pass. We parked at the winter road closure well shy of the pass and proceeded to hike up the road.
Snowshoes went on as we left the road and headed cross country into the willow-infested upper reaches of Scott Gomer creek.
The snow was pretty well consolidated so it wasn’t too much effort to head across the willow fields that are such an obstacle in the summer. We navigated pretty much due east towards the cliff band marking the western base of Mount Spalding.
After passing below a prominent clump of trees we found the creek we needed to follow that bypassed the cliffs to the northeast. Torrey helped us locate a few cairns marking the summer route.
We hiked up the east side of the creek until we were at about the 12,400 foot level then we began to make our way to the saddle between Gray Wolf Mountain and Unnamed 12,988. We’d now hiked into the high clouds and the views were pretty much limited to a monochrome white.
Turning east again we began hiking the final 800 feet to Gray Wolf’s summit. The wind picked up a bit, but was never as strong or as consistent as yesterday’s hike and felt nearly pleasant in comparison. Just sticking out of the snow I noticed a tracking collar that had broken apart well before the 60 week timer had released. I tucked it in my pack to haul out then returned to the last 200 or so feet. We encountered a low bump that we might have mistaken for the summit had my GPS not been along. Continuing east we came to a stacked pile of rocks and snapped a few photos before reversing our ascent.
Ascending in a whiteout always seems much easier than descending, where your options are greatly expanded. Frequent checks of the GPS and compass kept us from zigzagging excessively and we were soon out of the worst of the weather and warming up as we neared the willows.
In the lee of several large boulders we sneaked breaks before finally making it back to tree line and the road. We never found any Easter eggs (unless you count the tracking collar), but we did have a much better day than sitting inside watching the rain come down in Denver.
For the second day in a row the post-hike drive featured several of Colorado’s four legged citizens. I thought about returning the tracking collar to the pack of bighorns, but didn’t really think they wanted it back. We also saw a herd of 20+ elk grazing by I-70 (sorry mom, no pictures).
Complete Photo Album
