Clinton Peak

In Pete’s quest to climb the 100 highest peaks of Colorado he only had 6 summits in the San Juans and Clinton Peak. Winds looked relatively low up high so we decided to tackle Clinton Peak and get Pete that much closer to his goal. After spending a night in Breckenridge we headed south over Hoosier Pass and hit the parking area to find windy conditions. After gearing up in our cars we headed out to start the hike up a 4wd road.

We had a good look at the ice climbing at Lincoln Falls as we left the parking area and both had a moment’s regret that we weren’t taking advantage of the conditions. Maybe in January we’ll hit the ice here again. As we worked past an old mine the sun began to light up Mount Lincoln’s cliffs.

I’d thought about bringing skis for the long road hike in, but I’m glad I didn’t. Parts of the road were wind blown dry and others were mini-staking rinks of ice. Snowshoes worked best for these conditions.

The sun disappeared behind Mount Lincoln as we continued west up the valley. When it was time to branch off towards Wheeler Lake it was nice to hit the sun again.

Just above the lake the terrain presented some problems in route finding. Avalanche conditions were rated “considerable” on these aspects with a shallow snow cover highly granulated then covered with wind slabs from a week prior. We’d already hit some collapsing layers in the low-angled terrain as we hit the valley. Now I needed to find a reasonable way to pass the somewhat steeper terrain just above the lake.

Pete and I linked a few 20-25 degree slopes with exposed rock areas that I deemed safe. We had to cross one snow slope that I checked at 25 degrees before venturing across.

I crossed without incident and waited at some more exposed rocks. Pete followed and then I hit a small bowl. After taking a few steps forward I heard a large “whoopf” as the windslap I stood on collapsed. I looked up at the slightly steeper slopes above and my eyes were draw to the even steeper slopes above the terrain we’d just crossed. A crack appeared and I watched a mass of snow break away and begin to slide across the path we’d just crossed.

The slopes above us showed a few compression cracks, but didn’t release. They were lower-angled than the terrain above what we’d just crossed.

I was extremely thankful I’d stopped at the exposed rocks while Pete crossed the slope. The avalanche didn’t run over the whole possible slope and wasn’t very powerful, but could have definitely partially buried a person and broken a limb. I believe if I’d kept to some rocks just to my right the avalanche would never have been triggered. Pete questioned if we should continue, and we discussed the conditions and the possibility that we’d turn back.

We decided to press on and stick to very wind swept aspects or angles below 30 degrees. Pete was moving a little slowly since he’d run 21 miles the day before. Our original plan was to head up unranked Traver Peak then follow the ridge to McNamee and finally Clinton. However, with our reduced speed we decided to follow some windblown and rock-exposed slopes directly up Clinton in the interest of time.

We moved from rocky section to rocky section over lower angle slopes and watched as we gained elevation against the nearby 13′ers and 14′ers.

The wind picked up as we reached the ridge crest, but the views of the 10 Mile range to the north provided some motivation.

The wind was well above the forecasted 10 mph speed as we contoured around a false summit just east of the true summit.

A windy and undulating ridge led us on to the real summit.

It was windy enough that we didn’t even try to dig out the summit register, but just took a single photo and started back.

We discussed a few descent options, but the extremely windblown south face of the mountain led us in that direction. We negotiated bare rocks for a couple hundred feet and descended out of the worst of the wind. Eventually, the bare slopes turned back into snow and we had to pick the most gentle descent route and watch for additional avalanche terrain. Slope meter in hand I picked my way down 30 degrees slopes to safer angles.

Once back in the valley we enjoyed descending without snowshoes and worked our way back to our upward track. After a food and drink break in sight of “our” avalanche, we crossed the debris slope.

A few of the broken slab blocks were quite large in size.

As we descended below the avalanche track we kept looking back at the closest we’d been to a running avalanche track. Pete thought about acquiring the skills and gear to deal with type of terrain and I thought about the level 2 course I was planning to take next month.

It was a relief to be out of the steep terrain and we returned to our tracks on the road for the long hike out.

After 8 hours we returned to the cars and split up with different plans for Sunday.

Complete photo album

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The next day on North Star Mountain I took the following photo of our avalanche. I’ve added our approximate route track and other notes to the photo to help explain the incident.