Maroon Peak (14,162 ft.)

20 August, 2009: Sometimes, a good one takes two whacks. This one did. On the 5th, we tried Maroon Peak as a day hike, starting from the day use parking lot at 5 am MDT. We failed, having gotten off-route, and had to turn back at about 1:30 pm, having only reached Pt. 13,753. After some reflection, and some more route study, we decided to pack in, camp overnight, and try again.
So, on the 19th, we drove to and through Aspen, and arrived at the entrance to the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness at about 4 pm. We payed the FS their $10 fee to park in the "overnight" parking lot, shouldered our expedition packs, and headed up the West Maroon Creek trail as the sun was sinking into the west. We hiked for a couple of hours, and camped near where the standard south ridge route to Maroon leaves the creek trail, near the "bent tree," at about 10,500 ft.
Part 1: The Hill of Death
Good and lazy, we ignored our first alarm, and didn't hit the trail until 6:15 am. One group of climbers, three women, passed by on their way up as we were getting ready. We didn't worry, since this still put us more than an hour ahead of the timing of our previous attempt.
Once you leave the creek trail, the serious climbing begins immediately. The route goes straight up the east slopes of the mountain and it is steep. It's also loose. There is a cairned route, with a visible trail most of the way, but it's basically just an uphill grunt. And it goes on for 2,800 vertical feet. So, even fresh at the beginning of the day, it took us well over two hours to climb this open slope and finally reach the ridge. The climbing isn't over then, as we actually came to the crest of the southeast branch of the south ridge, somewhere around 12,500 ft. But the crest is rocky and lots more solid than the dirt on the east slope, so the going does get easier. We soon clambered over the one significant--and narrow!--ridge point separating us from the small saddle to which we had labored up the slopes two weeks earlier. Our longer route had probably actually taken less time to this point!
Part 2: Blind traversing
This is where the serious rock climbing begins, so this is where we donned helmets. As our previous experience confirmed, a detailed description of this route in words is difficult to produce, and difficult to follow. Suffice it, here, to say that you leave the ridge crest on the west side, and sort of traverse--meaning that there's a lot of up-and-down--for quite a long ways north before clambering up a loose gully and re-gaining the ridge.
The technical crux of the route is a steep chimney encountered early on. The wearying part, however, is the endless, loose rock filling the gullies, and the constant search for the cairns marking the desired route. The real trick of this part of the route is resisting temptation long enough, and finding the right gully to ascend. If you pick the right one, you find yourself just to the north of the minor summit ridge point at 13,753 ft. You are then presented with your first close-up view of the actual summit. Also, you can see that the rest of the ridge is fairly easy to navigate, and offers a basically clear path to the top. (See pictures.) Prior to this point, you really can't see where you're going. All you have are cairns in a fractal landscape.
Part 3: Back on the ridge and glorious views
We scampered up the ridge, now moving at what seemed like supersonic speeds, and hit the summit just after 11 am, and found something like eight other climbers already there. Some had preceded us up the south ridge route, and a few had made the monumental traverse over from North Maroon (14,020 ft.), just happening to arrive there at about the same time. It was a party on the summit!
The views, and the weather, were both astounding. We enjoyed both for nearly 40 minutes, but there was still that long descent ahead of us, so we headed down just before noon.
Part 4: How can going down be this slow?
Off the summit, we both stayed more right on the ridge crest than we had on the way up, now that we could better see where we were going. It's a bit exposed in places, but solid and largely level. Once at the gully separating the summit from Pt. 13,753, however, the easy going was over, and it was back to loose, dangerous rubble. Fortunately, we had little trouble with reverse route-finding. Little, not none: we did go around the opposite side of one rock outcropping. And it took most of an hour to get back to the saddle where we felt comfortable removing our helmets.Then it was time for our re-match with the Hill of Death.
Having done it before, and taking our longer but gentler route, both helped make it seem a bit less intimidating than the first time, but it was still slow going. You just don't dare develop any momentum on steep, loose ground like this! Once we came off the southeast ridge crest, and began the descending traverse in earnest, we found we could see our tent far, far below! Our route aimed us almost right toward it, and it slowly became larger. Still, it was well after 4 pm when we finally reached our campsite.
Part 5: Packing out
We rested briefly, but only briefly, before setting to work to break camp, pack up, and head out. This included taking down our suspended bag of food, a precaution which has pretty much become our standard. Groaning once again under full packs, we headed back down the trail at about 4:45 pm. We lost direct sunlight, regained it, and lost it again before we finally reached Maroon Lake and the parking lot. It was an uneventful march, and the weather still held, but we were both moving rather slowly by the time it was finally over, somewhere around 7 pm. Happy to have knocked off our unfinished business, but also knowing we had at least one more date with this trailhead (for North Maroon), we set off for home as twilight gathered.
Pictures are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/Rescued

and pictures from the earlier attempt are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/Marooned

Long life and many peaks!

Ellingwood Point (14,049 ft.)

15 July, 2009: After some hmming and hawing around, we finally settled on Ellingwood Point as the only really feasible target for this week. We had really wanted to do a three-day trip and pick up this one in tandem with Little Bear Peak, to make one trip up the awful Lake Como Road do, but it was not to be.
We (Trisha, Cimarron, and I) left Colorado Springs in the middle of the night in Kritter, and got to the beginning of the awful road well before sunrise, prepared to see how far up we could get. It turned out to be about two miles. This helped, but it still left a long stretch of annoying hiking between us and the lake. We set off just before the sun rose.
Actually, there isn't much to tell about most of this hike. We took crampons and ice axes in case there was still snow, but we never needed them. It was a fairly easy (if long) trail hike up to the top of the basin, where we left the trail and headed left (north).
We followed the standard southeast ridge route, which actually involves traversing and side-hilling just below the ridge most of the way to the summit. It's steep, but the rock turned out to be pretty reliable. The weather was stunningly clear and mild, and we reached the summit just after noon. The view from this peak is astonishing (despite its being a rather low fourteener), including a dynamite view of our one remaining goal in the Sangres: Little Bear (see photos). Fourteener #44 for me, #42 for Trisha, and #2 for Cimmy!
The hike down turned into a death march, however, especially for Trisha. She had gotten new boots, hoping for better traction, but they proved to be too stiff and in need of breaking-in, and she really tore up her heels before we were done. She would have to take two weeks off from climbing as a result.
All the same, it was a great climb. Great scrambling, and a very satifsying summit. Pictures are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/Ellingwood

and there's a summit video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXFgxwN6y1c


Long life and many peaks!

Mt. Sneffels (14,155 ft.)

1 July, 2009: Our original plan had been to use three days off together to attempt the Wilson group, but fatigue, lack of prep time, and, worst of all, reports of awful snow conditions there pushed us to a less ambitious Plan B: nearby Mt. Sneffels. It's still a long drive, however, so on Tuesday (the 30th) we (Trisha, Cimarron, and I) set off for Ouray, and the road up into Yankee Boy Basin.
To save both time and gas, we took Trisha's Toyota instead of Kritter, as reports I had read made me confident that virtually any vehicle could get at least up to 11,000 feet (once the road is cleared of the winter's snow). That was as far as we wanted to drive, anyway, since starting any higher would be "cheating." (There is actually a trailhead for this rugged mountain at an astounding 12,400 feet, which can be reached by any decent 4WD vehicle!) Seven hours or so of driving got us to the turn-off for Governor Basin and, just as expected, and that's where we found the first road section that looked like too much for a low-clearance vehicle. So, that's where we found a place to pull off the road, and a level spot for the tent, cooked up a dinner on the camp stove, and settled in for the night.
This is fairly short route (a welcome change from the previous week), so we made no attempt at a super-early start. The sun was almost up by the time we extracted ourselves from our sleeping bags, and it was up before we got packed up and hit the trail.
Owing to the aforementioned very high trailhead, the trail is a 4WD road almost to the wilderness boundary. It's not super scenic, although there is plenty of super scenery all around. Yankee Boy Basin is a spectacularly rugged place and, at least in July, abundant with greenery and flowers. The route is pretty easy to follow, too, making enjoying that scenery all the easier!
Only a short section of trail, nearly level, beyond the wilderness boundary brought us to the base of the couloir where the real climbing begins--the scramble up to Lavender Col. It faces roughly south, so it was already completely melted out. It's fairly steep and loose, however, so the pace slowed considerably at this point. Except for Cimarron, that is. She does very well on rocks, and was constantly waiting for us to catch up, in between spates of running all around as if the rocks and scree offered no hindrance at all.
The scree climb is annoying, but not really technically difficult--no worse than 2+. It didn't really take too long. We arrived at the Lavender Col, at about 13,XXX ft. and encountered the first of the remaining snow, so that is were we geared up.
The couloir above the col was still almost entirely covered with snow, which was good. It covered the loose rock, and gave us a consistent surface virtually all the way up. It's steep (35 to 40 degrees), but we made fairly good time up to the top. The top is the crux of the route: a v-shaped notch at just above 14,000 ft., formed by two angled slabs, which offers the only sane way out onto the slope leading to the summit. The rock is solid, but it's highly angled, and almost devoid of cracks or ledges. A few sizeable stones have apparently been purposefully jammed into the bottom to form useable steps, but large steps are still necessary, as well as pressure against the sides. And then there's the psychological difficulty: huge exposure to climber's left right at the base of the notch, with nothing much to brace oneself on, or to stop you if you should start over the edge. Thus, you simply have to maintain traction, and controlled motion, in the notch.
We got our biggest disappointment of the day from this combination of difficulties. Cimarron couldn't get enough purchase on the notch's rock to enable her to launch herself up through it. We considered for a moment trying to do some combination of pushing and pulling her, but the exposure at the base quickly convinced us that this simply wouldn't be safe. This had another consequence: One of us had to stay with Cimarron, so we had to summit seperately. Fortunately, the summit is only a few minutes away once you climb through the notch, and it's mostly just a walk. As I was already up the notch, Trisha told me to go first.
Cramponless, I traversed one last snowfield and made it out onto the tiny summit area. I signed the register and took just a few pictures as quickly as I could, so as not to keep the others waiting any longer than necessary. As I headed back, I met two climbers who had just completed a climb of the daunting north face, and were going down via our route. Impressive!
Then it was Trisha's turn. She lucked out with more clear sunshine on the top than I had had. That, plus encountering yet another party on the summit, which meant someone to take pictures, allowed her to come back with more engaging summit pictures than I. Some of them are included in the Picasa gallery.
The descent of the couloir offered its own kind of adventure. The two guys who had come up the north face--who were obviously more experienced climbers than us--made no attempt to glissade down it. Instead, they went down backwards, facing in, using the front points of their crampons and ice axes. Glissading could have saved a lot of time, but that couloir is steep. Plus, the steepness continues virtually unabated, right down to where the snow ends, which is still just above the col. Thus, there's no safe run-out: One would have to stop oneself with one's ice axe. Fail to do so, and you hit the rocks!
Thus, we decided to front-point our way down, too. Well, two of us did. Cimarron had a ball running--yes, running!--both up and down, as she shuttled back and forth between the two of us as we descended. After a few steps, I found I could make pretty good time in this mode. The crampons bit nicely, and the steps which we had kicked in the snow on the way up provided solid platforms to support body weight on the way down. It was possible to take rather big, and quick, steps down, while using my ice axe as a secondary anchor, and I quickly fell into a nice rhythm. Trisha didn't get the hang of it quite as fast, but she got better as we went down.
We wanted to make the best time we could, at least up high, since clouds had rolled in, and the weather wasn't 100% trustworthy. In fact, it didn't storm, but we didn't want to take unnecessary chances. The rocks below the snow were just as loose and annoying on the way down as they had been on the way up, but we made slightly better time descending. Before long, we were back on a good trail, with most of the vertical out of the way. We encountered numerous parties of people on the road/trail, many of them in jeeps and other 4WD vehicles. Most of them weren't heading for the summit, just out to enjoy the scenery of Yankee Boy Basin.
We made it back to the car in less than ten hours round trip, a short day by the standards to which we've recently become accustomed! Twenty minutes or so of breaking camp, cleaning up, and adjusting wardrobe, and we were ready to head off for Rio Rancho. Pictures are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/MtSneffels

(Be sure to see the photo of Trisha's car on the "C-shelf" section of the road!)
Long life and many peaks!

Longs Peak (Attempt)

25 June, 2009: Knowing full well that there might be snow left on the upper part of the route (beyond the Keyhole), Trisha and I decided to have a go at Longs Peak (14,261 ft.). This is the last 14er she needs on the Front Range.
We napped Tuesday afternoon/evening, and headed north about 11 pm (MDT). We arrived at the ranger station TH about 2:30 am, and found it surprisingly devoid of other cars.(This was due to it being a weekday, and early in the season.) Sure enough, a sign was posted to the effect that the Keyhole route was currently "technical"--by which they mean having snow and/or ice.
We set off at 2:35 am under clearing skies, with a balmy temperature of 51º. We made good time to the Keyhole (13,200 ft.), arriving there around 7 am, just half an hour after sunrise. Everything looked good!
There was indeed snow beyond the Keyhole. We got out our ice axes for stability, and Trish donned her crampons. (I had decided to go without mine.) The snow made the going a bit slower, but it wasn't the real problem. The real problem we encountered was route finding, based on my own failure to pay attention enough.
On my previous climb of Longs, I had come from the other direction after climbing Mt. Meeker. I felt sure I would recognize the bottom of the Homestretch when I saw it, but I forgot that the view of it would be slightly different. As a result, fixed on dealing with the snow, we followed another party of hikers and plowed right past the point where we should have turned left and up!
As a result, we wasted quite a bit of time plowing on farther to the south, until we started climbing up what I thought was the proper couloir. I just figured that it looked different from what I remembered because it was mostly covered in snow. Boy, was I wrong!
When we finally topped out, we found a benchmark showing an elevation of 13,749, and a view so totally different from my expectations and memory that I had to conclude firmly that we were in the wrong place. We could actually see the western slopes of Mt. Meeker, together with another steep drop-off to the southwest. Uh-oh...(I think we had actually climbed the upper part of Keplinger's couloir.)
There was no choice but to head back down, re-trace our steps to the north, and try again to find the correct place to turn (now) to our right and up. After doing so, we actually had no problem recognizing the correct route, as I was now seeing it from the perspective I remembered. The problem was that 1) we had wasted a lot of time, and 2) the warmth of the day was beginning to soften the snow quite a bit.
Nevertheless, we clawed our way about 80% of the way up the Homestretch in reasonably good time, to the place where the snow gave way to bare rock. I thought we were "home free" at this point, as the lip of the summit plateau was only a tantalizing few feet above us, and the snow climbing was over.
Well, almost over. The sun-warmed rocks had totally melted the adjacent snow, allowing the nightly freezes to convert it into a band of solid ice. Crampons refused to bite on this stuff, and the angle (35 to 40 degrees) made weight-bearing traction virtually impossible. I actually managed to find a place where I could lever my body up onto the bare rocks, but it required all my length of limb and quite a bit of exposed dangling. There was no way Trisha could duplicate those moves, and we both knew it. Even from above, I couldn't find any other place where she could safely get across the band of ice.
After minor slips forced us both to use our axes to self-arrest, it became clear that this was not going to be our day for Longs. Reluctantly, we turned around, knowing that we had given it all we could, but had no choice but to abide with my continuing contract with Suzanne that we both had to come back in one piece each, come what may. We'd live to climb another day.
Back at the Keyhole, we met a couple hiking up. They had already decided that they weren't going to summit that day either, just look over the ridge and head back down. They kindly took our picture in front of the stone hut, with its plaque memorializing Agnes Vaille (the first woman to climb Longs). We took a similar picture of them, and we all headed down.
The skies threatened, but we were only subjected to a few spits of rain on the long way back to the ranger station. We arrived there 14 hours and 15 minutes after setting out, having covered about 15 miles and climbed about 5,300 feet of vertical.
Pictures are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/LongsAttempt


Long life and many peaks!

Uncompahgre Peak (14,314 ft.)

18 June, 2009: The snowy spring--and work schedules--held back the star tof 14er season '09 until the third week in June(!). Trisha and I decided to start off with something easy. In fact, Uncompahgre was the absolute easiest peak we have left, except for our chosen finishers. So we cherry-picked off the bottom of the list. Off to Lake City.
We loaded upTrisha's new trailhead vehicle ("Critter"), a 1989 Isuzu Trooper, and left town Wednesday afternoon. Critter has awesome clearance, but no great power for high speed on the highway. Thus, five hours got us through Lake City, and five miles up the Henson Creek Road, where the 4WD road up Nellie Creek starts. With an hour left before astronomical sunset, we were hopeful that we would still have light to set up a camp for the night and cook dinner at the trailhead.
It quickly became apparent that Critter was going to handle this rough road just fine. Not only is it rough, it's steep, rising about 3,000 feet in just 4.3 miles. It also has tight turns and switchbacks, plus two crossings of Nellie Creek, but we cruised on up, without a hitch or a bottoming-out, in about half an hour.
We also took Cimarron on this trip, and the trailhead was where she got her first chance to run around without restriction. She loved it.
With only a couple of snoozes after the 4 am alarm, we heated some coffee, packed up, and were on the trail by a few minutes after 5 am--only half an hour after sunrise. We were treated to the sight of an old crescent moon and Venus rising above the ridge northeast of us before daylight washed them out.
We hiked the well-worn trail with decent energy, and in just a few minutes we had emerged from the trees, and began to get our first glimpses of sunlit peaks ahead. After climbing the one big switchback on the trail, which raised us up above Nellie Creek and up onto a small ridge, we finally could see our objective off to the west. It's impressive!
Above timberline, we finally began to encounter some snowfields covering the trail. They were not deep, however, and we had no problem walking over them. What we did have a problem with was the wind! Around 13,000 ft., it really kicked up, threatening our balance, and forcing us to stop now and again simply to turn our backs to it.
After marching west on the good trail, and over to the west side of the mountain's south ridge, we came to the crux of this climb: a 150-foot climb through the steeper rocks and boulders to reach the summit plateau. About here, the wind finally let up, and we continued on up the more gradual slope to the summit.
There, we had a chance to look over the nearly vertical north face, which has never been climbed. What a drop! We met two other climbers who had summitted just before us, one of whom was vacationing from Chicago. We hung around for about half an hour, soaking in the astounding views. Uncompahgre is the highest peak in the San Juans. It's also one, the lowest, of only six in Colorado which rise above 14,300 ft., and the last of these for us to climb.
The descent was uneventful, and found us hiking in summer clothes by the time we got back to the trailhead at 10,400 ft. Round trip, 6.6 miles, about 3,000 ft. vertical. Fourteener #42 for me, #40 for Trisha, and #1 for Cimarron!
Long life and many peaks!

Mt. Pittsburg (8,197 ft.)
UN 8203C

31 January, 2009: After our checkered performance on the Turkey Creek peaks, Doug, Susan and I were nevertheless determined to try bagging the two southernmost ranked peaks in El Paso County. The trailhead for this one is at a campground on Barrett Road off of Highway 115. Doug had had some previous contact with the owners, so we were confident of at least getting permission to park there to start our hike.
When we arrived, just before 8 am, we found the office vacant and no one stirring anywhere. Susan got on her cell phone and called the number posted in the window, but could only leave a message. So, Doug parked at the north end of the campground, just a few yards from where the trail takes off northward, and we set off.
A decent trail leads up along the ridge crest for some distance before kind of petering out. After that, we dropped off the ridge on the west side, to stay out of sight from the handful of homes located on the east side. This got us into some steep sidehilling, combined with serious bushwhacking. It was slow going in places.
The last big obstacle was a house which sits facing south on the south face of Mt. Pittsburg. (Yes, I'm spelling that right.) To avoid it, we dropped off to the west yet again, and clawed our way up through scrub brush and timber to a point on the ridge crest somewhat above and north of it. There we came with spitting distance of the radio tower installation which sits just south of the summit (see photos). There didn't seem to be anyone about; it probably runs on auto-pilot most of the time.
From there, the summit was just a short distance away, and probably no more than 150 feet vertically. The ever-present scrub oak, however, made it a rather slow march. The true summit is the more northerly of two high points, and actually has a fairly large area that is open, tree-free, and reasonably flat. Once there, we got the nicest surprise of the day: There was a register, and it had been placed there in 1980 by the "Brown Bear Mountaineering Club" of Denver! There were only about two dozen entries, many of them made by people who live (or lived) in the immediate vicinity. This is truly an obscure, and rarely-climbed, peak!
I should mention that the weather was gorgeous, and we were already shedding clothing in the clear sunshine. After some food, water, and pictures, we dropped off the northwest ridge for the trek over to 8203C, which is the line parent of Pittsburg. The descent was steep, and we dodged both rock outcroppings and brush to get to the saddle, some 450 feet below. The climb on the other side was much gentler, but also considerably longer.
We followed the twisted ridge crest as best we could for over an hour before finally coming to the little rocky high point which GPS data confirmed was the summit we were seeking. Here, we didn't find a register, so we installed one. This summit is just barely within El Paso County: You could literally throw a stone westward, and have it land in Fremont County.
Rather than re-trace our steps, we only followed the ridge down partway, then we descended into the Red Creek drainage, trying to intersect the road that comes up to a quarry southwest of Pittsburg. It worked, but probably didn't really save us any time, compared to going back over Pittsburg. This was because we had to climb over half a dozen small ridges along the way, complete with the ubiquitous scrub brush.
We did finally arrive at the south end of the quarry, and the road, however, and followed it back to the campground. We got back to the car just before 4 pm, about eight hours after setting out. No gates blocked our way out this time, and we drove back to town in glorious sunshine, quite content with our twofer of obscure peaks.
Photos are at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/MtPittsburg

Long life and many peaks!

Pt. 8487

Pt. 8418B

Pt. 7820B

17 January, 2009:

OK; I haven't really been doing nothing since last September. Snow blankets most of the high country, but the Pikes Peak region has gotten off pretty easy in that regard. So it was time to continue whittling down the El Paso County list of ranked peaks. I’ve been generally working down in elevation, with all the ranked peaks over 9,000 ft. already bagged. So the next one targeted was Unnamed 8,487, a remote and obscure peak located above Turkey Creek Canyon near the southern end of the county.

For this one, I got together with fellow local climbers Doug Hatfield and Susan Paul. A quick look at the map shows two other ranked peaks in the same vicinity, so it only made sense to try to nail all three of them on a single trip. We figured a 12-hour day would suffice. This might seem surprising, since the loop route was only about 7.5 miles long, with about 3,700 ft. of vertical. The catch is that it’s all bushwhacking; other than some dirt road walking at the beginning and the end, there is no trail to follow. Some navigation skills definitely required, YMMV.

Doug picked me up in the dark just after 6 am, and, after refueling with coffee, we headed off south. A cautionary note: These peaks are on private property, and we were blatantly trespassing. Personally (obviously!) I have no real qualms about this, as such peaks typically represent the “back end” of some ranch or vacation home, and (as we later verified) the landowners usually make no use of the mountains and have no idea on what sort of gems they are sitting. So we were willing to take our chances, trying to become the second, third, and fourth persons in recorded history to climb all of the ranked peaks in El Paso County. Topography makes no accommodation to legal niceties (or vice-versa…).

So…we drove up the Turkey Creek Canyon Road, then turned right (north) onto the road which runs northwest up Little Turkey Creek Canyon, as far as Doug’s Prism could get traction. After encountering a slope of packed snow and ice which, after three tries, he still couldn’t surmount, we gave up and parked at a wide spot in the road just below. This would turn out to be a mistake, but more on that later.

At 6:38 am, we were off on foot, heading up the road. The road leads up to the saddle between our first two objective peaks: 7820B on the east, and 8418B on the west. From that saddle, we left the road and pushed up through the trees and a tiny bit of snow to our first summit, 7820B, at about 7:30 am. It only required a climb of about 300 feet (thus, it’s ranked!), and it would have been a romp but for the timber. Even with the timber, it was pretty easy. We headed back down to the road, and started the westerly climb toward 8418B.

This one took a little longer, but it was very pleasant because, once we got a bit above the saddle, we were hiking in early morning sunshine. We followed the twisted ridge roughly west, over or around several major ridge points. At about 9:30 am, we came to the westernmost ridge point, which we agreed was slightly higher than the one before it and constituted the actual summit of 8418B. We paused for 20 minutes or so, taking pictures and snacking, before heading off for the real prize of the day, 8487.

We backtracked a bit, to head down the crest of a south-leading ridge into Turkey Creek Canyon. The descent involved a mix of scrub oak bushwhacking and negotiation of rock outcrops, and took us about an hour.

After descending to the road, we simply stepped across the small creek, and began the final climb of the day. Our objective was now hidden from us, being located half a mile or so south of a more prominent ridge point at about 8,300 ft. Naturally, on this north-facing slope, we had to slog through a little snow, but gaiters were all the equipment that was necessary.

Finally, about 1 o’clock, we topped out on a point where we could finally get a good view of 8487. The ridge in between required only a bit of net elevation gain, but involved passing either over or around half a dozen minor ridge points.

When we came to the final saddle, we decided that the most efficient route to the top would be to traverse off to our left (southeast), and make the final approach to the summit from the east. It was shady, and therefore snowy, but considerably more gently sloped than the west side of the top.

The traverse involved some serious side-hilling to get around a sharp corner, and the going was slower than anything we had encountered earlier. After we turned the corner, it didn’t really get any easier, as we were presented with the steepest climbing of the day. It was only about 50 vertical feet to the summit, but it was steep, loose, and still choked with vegetation.

But we made it, and got to the summit about 2:15 pm, in glorious sunshine. This got me to 28 out of 37 ranked peaks in El Paso County, three-quarters of the way! But note that that’s nearly eight hours to get our three peaks, and we still had to hike down and out.

Rather than re-climb the ridge between Turkey Creek and Little Turkey Creek Canyons, we dropped down somewhat to the east of our upward route, and found the road leading down to the east. We knew if we followed this road down, we would come around the east end of the ridge, and come to the gate at which we had turned aside on the way in. From there it would be just a short hike back up to the north to the car.

There was, however, one thing upon which we had not counted. On the way in, we had gone perhaps a hundred yards up-canyon from an open gate. When we came back up that road, just as darkness fell (about 6 pm), we found that that gate had been closed below us! Some landowner had decided to lock us in.

At that point, we had no choice but to collect what we needed from the car (which in my case was everything), and start hiking by starlight back out toward Highway 115. Things were really getting interesting.

We got perhaps halfway when headlights came up the road from the east. After they stopped and asked us if we needed help, and we rather humbly explained our situation, the most amazing series of events happened. First, they said that they would open the gate for us. (There was some initial confusion as to which gate it was, but that got cleared up in due course.) Then, against all odds and our expectations, they invited us to ride back with them to there house, which was located at the road junction where we had turned right in the morning. While the husband, Mike, drove Doug back up the road to retrieve his car, the wife, Beege, invited Susan and me in to warm up.

After Mike and Doug returned, we spent about an hour chatting and learning some of the history of the area. Instead of being mad at us, Mike and Beege showed a great deal of understanding of our situation (even though we had to explain to them what a “ranked peak” was!), and even served us hot chocolate while we warmed up in their dining room.

Finally, we said our goodbyes, with hugs all around, and piled back into Doug’s liberated car for the ride home. It was after 8 pm when we got to Normandy Circle—later than we had anticipated—but we all felt pretty good.

I took a few photos on the trip, and my photo gallery, which includes a few taken by Doug and Susan, is at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tcogwr/UN8487