After a night of acclimating in St Louis, Missouri I spent 12 hours driving to Golden, 1 hour re-packing, then several hours making my way past Leadville to meet up with Pete and camp over 10,000 feet near the 14′er La Plata. For being un-acclimated after two weeks back in Indiana I slept pretty well.
The next morning we joined John and Renata at the Willis Gulch trailhead at first light. The spring melt off was in full swing and Lake Creek was running strong.
I was anxious to stretch my legs again, but put myself at the back of the group so I could concentrate on a nice slow pace as I huffed and puffed at altitude.
The others had all been out on Saturday, hiking up multiple 13′ers so we kept a slow pace up several trails leading to Big Willis Gulch Trail. We found a few pockets of rotten snow in the trees but never wished for snowshoes. Higher still, where the trees were thinner the snow was completely gone.
Most stunning was the view of Mount Blaurock to the south. Its north face still held plenty of snow and several enticing looking couloirs.
Pushing up to 11,600 feet I was really working to catch my breath. I wondered how I’d fair on the remaining 2,000+ feet to Rinker’s summit. John had spied a snow field or shallow couloir in a trip report from the previous weekend and so we selected one a little south of Rinker’s summit that looked more continuous than the other options.
We walked up some low angled snow and past some willows while looking back up the valley towards Willis Lake.
At the base of the steeper snow we stopped to break out the ice axes and crampons.
Then it was time to start up the couloir.
The first break in the snow soon arrived and melt water was showing through a gap surrounded by slushy snow and a little ice.
A short scramble led through the rocks left of the flowing water and we returned to the meditative pattern of snow climbing.
We’d been comparing this slope to the Angel of Shavano route, but looking down I thought this nameless route was steeper. Getting out the compass I measured the slope at about 38 degrees – a bit steeper than Shavano’s famous snow climb.
A loose scree slope provided the second break in our snow ribbon and the rotten, shallow snow nearby provided a workout of postholing. Maybe it has to something to do with my love of snow routes, but I was feeling better now than down in the valley and led the entire snow slope to the ridge crest.
Once I poked my head over the ridge I was greeted with the huge sight of La Plata across the valley and looming over us.
The others quickly arrived and we took a break to enjoy the views.
We still had a few hundred feet to gain to reach Rinker’s 13,783 foot summit. So we started back north and took the more defined eastern rib leading upwards.
This part of the hike was mostly class 2 dirt and rock but the views were ever expanding and amazing. Pete and John identified the myriad summits.
We took a break on the summit for lunch and looked at the route towards the unranked Twin Peaks to our north.
We headed down some snow and mostly rock to the Rinker-Twin Peaks saddle.
Then it was back up again as we scrambled on the ridge to the top of Twin Peaks.
After a shorter break we reversed our route to the Rinker-Twin Peaks saddle then headed down the Big Willis Gulch side to a snow patch we hoped would offer better travel than the loose scree we were traversing.
I started a half standing glissade, half side slip down the slope while the others decided they’d rather traverse further south looking for a more reasonable descent route. The snow was featured with growing sun cups on its southern side, but the northern portion was smoother and I made pretty good time with this mode of travel.
At one point the snow steepened and I decided to move over onto some dirt slopes with allowed easy passage around this danger. Then I could traverse back onto the snow and end up a few hundred feet above the trail with just some easy walking left. I found a shaded spot and sat down to finish most of my food while I waited for the others.
On the way out we talked of future trips, gradually growing silent with the efforts of a long weekend nearly behind us.
