Pete’s unfortunate collision Friday morning with a deer meant a slight delay of our weekend plans. So, with a Saturday morning free for once I made my first visit to Golden’s Farmer’s Market before Pete arrived in a rental that definitely wasn’t going to make it up to the Music Pass Trailhead. We hoped my vehicle would get us there (no 4wd, but high clearance) and set out for the 3.5 hour drive to the Sangre de Cristos.
The high clearance was definitely required for the 3 miles of rough road past the Grape Creek trailhead but we made it to Music Pass Trailhead and were hiking by a little after 2pm.
Clouds had been building to the north and east over the Wet Mountains, but the weather looked good where we were as we hiked up to Music Pass for a view of Tijeras Peak, Music Mountain, Milwaukee Peak and other sentinels of the Sand Creek watershed.
From the pass we descend a couple hundred feet into dandelion-infested meadows. I wondered if the weeds occurred here naturally or were brought in on boots on hooves.
The crux of our hike would be the crossing of Sand Creek on some slick and not very stable logs.
We both managed to stay dry and then started to hike up to the Lower Sand Lake passing a few patches of snow. At the lake we stopped to admire the east face of Tijeras Peak (not the way up for us!).
After hunting around, we eventually located some dry ground far enough from the lake to satisfy the regulations and then wandered the lake shore looking for photo opportunities.
After dinner we turned in fairly early as we planned to wake up a 4:30am to enjoy the morning’s alpine glow on the peaks.
After a quick breakfast we were out of camp before 5:30a and picking our way through the trees just bearing roughly west and uphill. As we broke out of treeline we attempted to take a route that would lead us to the snow ramp that broke the lower cliffs of Tijeras Peak and provide easy access.
As we dodged willow bushes and marshy areas we admired the morning sun on Music Mountain.
At the snow ramp we deployed our ice axes and kicked steps up the semi-firm snow. As the ramp narrowed the snow grew rotten and couldn’t support our weight so we moved onto the wet rock and scrambled upwards.
Above the ramp we stowed the ice axes and then commenced boulder hopping to the ridge above. As we climbed higher clouds started to drift over from the west and obscure the peaks around us.
It wasn’t a white-out, but it certainly provided extra atmosphere to our ridge scramble.
The ridge was a mix of class 2 and 3 scrambling, occasionally requiring our hands but not very difficult. However, while the climbing was enjoyable, we were disappointed by the lack of views on the summit and didn’t stay long.
We quickly reversed our route and then located the ramp with a combination of rock cairns and a GPS waypoint.
We hoped the weather would hold (or actually improve) as we wanted to climb Tijeras’s neighbor Music Mountain as well. From the exit to the snow ramp we contoured around the basin again dodging marshes and willows and aiming for the long east ridge of Music.
Ice axes again came out for a hundred feet of snow climbing to gain the ridge.
The east ridge started out gently enough, but soon provided more challenges and exposure.
After passing a notch the difficulties increased to class 4 scrambling before easing off again.
The rock was mostly sound, but a few loose boulders were noticed and had to be carefully passed. While avoiding these dangers we took the time to admire the Upper Sand Lake from above.
Clouds intermittently came and went, buzzing our little ridge but giving us short views of the surroundings.
Best of all, we could see the summit of Music Mountain just to our north along a steep ridge and anticipate the fun scrambling ahead.
Once again, the difficulties weren’t consistent, but revolved between class 2, 3 and 4 scrambling with another crux just before the true summit.
The clouds had mostly left to gather elsewhere and the skies to our west were largely blue and encouraging to a longer break on the summit.
After warming up just below the summit in the sun and out of the wind we started down to reverse our ascent route.
We quickly made it back down the east ridge and past all the difficulties, then dropped back into our basin to locate camp. Once there we packed up thinking it might rain before long and set off hoping to stay dry crossing Sand Creek again.
Our pace slowed down as we used lower gears to regain Music Pass before stopping for a final look back at Tijeras and Music.
Once back at the trailhead Pete decided he could use a good downhill run so switched into running shoes while I worked my way down the road for 3 miles to wait for his run to finish up. All great hikes and climbs deserve a brewery ending, so we made a stop in Colorado Springs at the Phantom Canyon Brewing company.