Gary gets us up the 4wd road to the Bush Creek Trailhead where we finalize our packs and start hiking at 5pm.
The trail is beautiful, but will run for a long 10 miles to the Upper Slate Lake while including multiple ridge and drainage crossings.
Those ups and downs will weigh heavily in a few days when we come back out, but for now just add to the challenge of reaching camp by dark.
The miles don’t roll by as quickly as I’d hoped, but our pace is explained by the large loads we’re carrying in. Ice axes, ice tools, steel crampons, stiff boots, harnesses, helmets, a picket, 40 meter climbing rope and a light rack hang off our hips and shoulders.
At least the evening light is worth the long hike.
While approaching Slate Lake Gary and I observe prints in the mud and decide some people are ahead of us in the valley.
Around 8:15 we reach Slate Lake and I think the next mile or so will only take 35-45 minutes. A steep trail, a washed out foot bridge and an ill-advised headlamp-assisted bushwhack delays our arrival until 9:30p. Exhausted we setup the tent, snack and filter water for tomorrow.
I don’t sleep well, but quickly get up with anticipation for today’s objective.
A couple years ago I spotted an amazing looking couloir on Peak R while scrambling up Peak L. A little research indicated that guidebook author Joseph Kramarsic had called the couloir the “Regal Couloir”. It looked classic, but required some commitment to haul the appropriate gear in this far.
Gary and I left camp a bit after 6am and started traversing around the south side of the Upper Slate Lake. A large group suddenly appeared in a small meadow and I took one look at the tarps and ages of the party and asked “Are you an Outward Bound group?”
16 years ago I’d taken a 23 day “alpine mountaineering” Outward Bound course in this same range. It’d been my first real introduction to backpacking and mountaineering and provided the foundation for my outdoor pursuits ever since. After I gushed to the trip leaders and talked about their plans, Gary and I continued up the valley.
A little bushwhacking, some snow field traverses and a lot of rock hoping delivered us to the base of the Regal Couloir.
The sun had softened a bit of the snow in the lower apron leading to the couloir and we kick stepped up this until it was time to get out the crampons.
Harnesses went on a well, as we weren’t 100% sure we wouldn’t hit terrain steep enough to require belays.
The couloir ended up being a very consistent 50 degrees and gave our calves quite the workout.
The couloir proper only lasted 600 feet however, and after topping out we dropped our packs for the short scramble to the summit.
The summit register showed that Joe Kramarsic had climbed the Regal Couloir almost exactly 4 years ago to the day. No one else had indicated they’d come up that way.
The Regal Couloir was the huge enticement for me to return to this valley, but our day and our weekend was only just beginning. The view east showed a lot of rugged terrain, and our goal was to traverse that whole ridge.
The Gore Range has very few officially named peaks, so a Colorado Mountain Club trip in the 1930′s started to simply name the peaks after letters in the alphabet. Hence, after climbing Peak R we were headed on to Peaks S and T and T’ (T Prime).
For the first portion of the traverse, over to Peak S, we managed to find a break in some cliffs that allowed us to traverse beneath the snow field at the Peak S-R saddle, but without dropping too much elevation. Mostly straight forward scrambling remained to the actual summit.
The portion of the ridge from S to T I thought was one of the more continuous fun and challenging scrambles I’d done.
Plenty of knife-edged ridges presented themselves.
Just before reaching Peak T, we located a goat’s path on the south side of the ridge and even spotted a couple goats. Hiking past the summit, then doubling back a bit we eventually reached the 12 foot boulder that is the true high point of Peak T.
Gary tossed our rope over the top and we took turns belaying one another on the ~5.5 climbing to the summit and back down.
After packing away our ropes and taking a bit of a break, we scrambled back down to easier terrain and then to the T-T’ saddle. T Prime isn’t a ranked peak (neither is T for that matter), and I was feeling pretty exhausted. If Gary had suggested we skip T’, I’d have quickly agreed. Instead, we dropped our packs at the saddle and started an hour round trip to the summit of T’ and back.
We mostly stayed left (north) of the ridge for the whole distance until we reached the summit boulder (no ropes required this time).
After returning to our packs we descended straight back to the lake from the saddle.
It was about 4:30p and Gary prepared an excellent salad to start our recovery dinner.
The rest of the evening we napped, planned tomorrow’s excursion and filtered water from the lake.
Beautiful pictures!