Here are the totals from the last month of training/hiking:
At 12,354 feet, Flat Top Mountain is the tallest point in the Flat Top Wilderness area.
(since May 17th)
miles hiked: 88.17
elevation gained: 30,791 feet
miles jogged: 21.47
miles biked: 61.57
We started Week 3 with a trip up to the Maroon Bells. Though I've seen the Bells from the tops of nearby mountains like Castle Peak, Mt. Sopris, and others, I had never actually been to Maroon Lake. It is incredible that after thirteen years living in the Roaring Fork Valley, I've missed out on this wonder. On our visit, the majestic Bells did not disappoint.
It was a little too windy (and the lake, therefore, too choppy) to get the famous mirrored-reflection of the Bells in the water that you see on phone books, King Soopers cards, and tourist guidebooks.
The melt was at its peak and Crater Lake was overflowing its banks, swamping the trail in several locations, so the journey to the far-side took some time.This picture looks back on Crater Lake:
Cathedral Lake trail is considerably steeper than Crater Lake trail and gains about 2,000 feet in just two and a half miles. It is beautiful, and while we sweated our way upward, we were rewarded with breathtaking sights of the high peaks of the area including Malamute and an unnamed thirteener just to its north:
After cresting a steep section of switchbacks, we were almost at 12,000 feet. I knew we were very close to the lake at this point. The trail, however, disappeared suddenly under three feet of snow. It was slow, frustrating progress, and we alternated every few steps between being able to float on top and sinking thigh deep. We followed as best we could a trail laid out by some snowshoers ahead of us and tried to keep in high spirits. We were admittedly unprepared for post-holing through three-feet of snow:
After cussing and struggling for the better part of half an hour, thinking all along that we had to be getting close, we suddenly encountered the very snowshoers that we had been following, returning the other way and asking us where the lake was. Turns out, they were not the best group to follow, and we had overshot the lake by about half a mile. We turned to the south and saw the lake below us, mostly frozen and glacier-blue in color. We could tell from here that if we wanted to get to the lake, an ugly amount of frustrating post-holing was in our future. We gave it an honest effort but soon gave up.
The second two weeks of our training month was just as, if not more, exciting than the first two weeks. Here are some of the highlights:
We started Week 3 with a trip up to the Maroon Bells. Though I've seen the Bells from the tops of nearby mountains like Castle Peak, Mt. Sopris, and others, I had never actually been to Maroon Lake. It is incredible that after thirteen years living in the Roaring Fork Valley, I've missed out on this wonder. On our visit, the majestic Bells did not disappoint.
We got an early start from Glenwood so we could beat the 8:30 gate closure on Maroon Creek rd. This way we could avoid having to pay to take the bus. It was a beautiful morning despite a few threatening rainclouds to the west. We misjudged, however, the amount of time the drive would take in the morning rush hour and passed through the gate at 8:15, just a few minutes before the closure. Phew! We arrived at Maroon Lake to find eye-blue skies and a panorama view that, although I had never seen it in person, was already familiar. Surely this is one of the classic photographs of Colorado:
It was a little too windy (and the lake, therefore, too choppy) to get the famous mirrored-reflection of the Bells in the water that you see on phone books, King Soopers cards, and tourist guidebooks. We began our hike in good spirits, planning to make the two-and-a-half mile journey past Maroon Lake to Crater Lake with good time. From there we intended to hike a few miles past Crater Lake toward Maroon Pass to get a little beyond the well-beaten path.
These pictures show the Bells and the Sleeping Sexton emerging over the last ridge before we dropped into Crater Lake:
When we arrived at Crater Lake, the weather was still holding, but the sky was dampening under a gloss of thin clouds. We set the camera on a stump with a ten-second delay and took this picture of the two of us:
The melt was at its peak and Crater Lake was overflowing its banks, swamping the trail in several locations, so the journey to the far-side took some time.This picture looks back on Crater Lake: Not far past Crater Lake we quickly encountered some snow and the remains of a relatively fresh avalanche. We were right at the very foot of the Bells now, and we could see the ski tracks of a few few hardy souls that had skied the so-called Bell Chord Colouir between the two massive peaks.
Some ugly clouds had moved in, and we reached a section of (arrg!) post-holing, so we decided to call the day short. Though we didn't make it as far as we intended, it was an excellent day in one of Colorado's most beautiful places. This last picture looks up at Pyramid Peak and Thunder Pyramid as the rain/snow began to overtake us:
We knew it was going to be difficult to top the Maroon Bells, but we had quite a few more hikes we wanted to accomplish before D-Day, so we kept plugging away. The next hike we undertook was Lookout Mountain east of Glenwood Springs via "Suicide Ridge". This ultra-steep climb gains over 2,000 feet in about a mile and a half and was a good test piece for those steep fourteener ridges we would be climbing soon. Suicide Ridge, as opposed to the far more mellow Boy Scout Trail, is the most difficult way to climb this mountain. Needless to say it was a struggle. I guess a trail doesn't get the moniker "Suicide Ridge" for no good reason. From the top we were rewarded with a hawk's view of Glenwood:
The following day we climbed to the bridge past the three-mile marker on Glenwood-area standard No Name Creek. This mini-waterfall has always been one of my favorite sights in No Name Canyon:
On Sunday, one week before D-Day, we ventured back into the high country to take on Cathedral Lake, a gorgeous trail that I had hiked once about six years earlier.
Cathedral Lake trail starts in the upper reaches of the Castle Creek Valley near the ghost town of Ashcroft and famed restaurant, the Pine Creek Cookhouse (excellent, high-high end food, by the way). The upper Castle Creek Valley is home to some amazing sights. This photo looks south up the valley from the trail not far from the trailhead:
Cathedral Lake trail is considerably steeper than Crater Lake trail and gains about 2,000 feet in just two and a half miles. It is beautiful, and while we sweated our way upward, we were rewarded with breathtaking sights of the high peaks of the area including Malamute and an unnamed thirteener just to its north: After cresting a steep section of switchbacks, we were almost at 12,000 feet. I knew we were very close to the lake at this point. The trail, however, disappeared suddenly under three feet of snow. It was slow, frustrating progress, and we alternated every few steps between being able to float on top and sinking thigh deep. We followed as best we could a trail laid out by some snowshoers ahead of us and tried to keep in high spirits. We were admittedly unprepared for post-holing through three-feet of snow:After cussing and struggling for the better part of half an hour, thinking all along that we had to be getting close, we suddenly encountered the very snowshoers that we had been following, returning the other way and asking us where the lake was. Turns out, they were not the best group to follow, and we had overshot the lake by about half a mile. We turned to the south and saw the lake below us, mostly frozen and glacier-blue in color. We could tell from here that if we wanted to get to the lake, an ugly amount of frustrating post-holing was in our future. We gave it an honest effort but soon gave up. This photo shows Cathedral Lake below us. The teal, glacial blue color just doesn't quite show up in the photo:
Having had a pretty substantial workout, and seen yet another amazing Colorado high country basin, we turned around and hiked out in good spirits. We would have liked to have made it to the lake, but that journey will have to wait for another time. We decided to view the day as a good learning experience and good practice for the snow that we will undoubtedly encounter this summer. This last photo looks up at Cathedral Peak (13,943') on the hike out:
Our next adventure was one of my off-the-beaten-path ideas and a place where I thought we could get some experience with difficult, un-roped scrambling and climbing (a necessary evil in mountaineering). It was a small mountain just north of New Castle and a place that Ella and I had climbed before (but never summitted). We gave the mini-mountain a shot and made it about 5/6ths of the way to the top. The climbing was loose, exposed class IV with an occasional 5.0-5.4 section. Here is an overview of the peak and the route we attempted:
I was shaky and nervous and did not climb as well as I had on our previous attempt at this route. Ella did much better than me, and I made her turn around at the base of the last forty-foot class ~5.2 pitch before the summit. I guess I didn't have my fifth-class free solo (climbing term for un-roped) hat on that day.
Having had a pretty substantial workout, and seen yet another amazing Colorado high country basin, we turned around and hiked out in good spirits. We would have liked to have made it to the lake, but that journey will have to wait for another time. We decided to view the day as a good learning experience and good practice for the snow that we will undoubtedly encounter this summer. This last photo looks up at Cathedral Peak (13,943') on the hike out:Our next adventure was one of my off-the-beaten-path ideas and a place where I thought we could get some experience with difficult, un-roped scrambling and climbing (a necessary evil in mountaineering). It was a small mountain just north of New Castle and a place that Ella and I had climbed before (but never summitted). We gave the mini-mountain a shot and made it about 5/6ths of the way to the top. The climbing was loose, exposed class IV with an occasional 5.0-5.4 section. Here is an overview of the peak and the route we attempted:I was shaky and nervous and did not climb as well as I had on our previous attempt at this route. Ella did much better than me, and I made her turn around at the base of the last forty-foot class ~5.2 pitch before the summit. I guess I didn't have my fifth-class free solo (climbing term for un-roped) hat on that day. Here is Ella at the base of the first wall, about to tackle a lengthy, exposed 5.0-5.2 section (I cheated and instead climbed a fourth-class crack not far to the right):
On Wednesday we climbed the strenuous Storm King trail. Storm King is an interesting, introspective hike through the burned remains of the 1994 South Canyon Fire that took the lives of 14 wildland firefighters. The hike follows the route the firefighters took on that fateful day to the grave/memorial site. This was a tragedy beyond measure and visiting the site where it took place is always a little bit emotional. The hike itself is steep and exposed to the sun, as there are very few trees left to provide shade. The thermometer touched the mid-eighties as we hiked. Surely, we lost a pound or two in sweat alone.
The last training hike of the summer I undertook alone (Ella was at orientation for her upcoming enrollment in Colorado Mountain College's nursing program). I decided to tackle a 10.7 mile loop in the Flattops called the Devil's Causeway trail. Devil's Causeway is a steep climb to a dramatic escarpment in which passage takes you over a three-foot wide cliff with drops of several hundred feet on each side. I got an early start from New Castle and arrived at the trailhead at about nine o'clock in the morning. It was a clear day but unsettled weather was moving in. A strong breeze ripped across Stillwater Reservoir. I had this entire basin to myself for most of the day, which was both exhilarating and oddly intimidating. This first photo shows Flat Top Mountain as viewed from Stillwater Lake near the trailhead:
At 12,354 feet, Flat Top Mountain is the tallest point in the Flat Top Wilderness area. The snow grew steadily deeper as I hiked around the lake and towards a steep bowl that is the only practical route onto Devil's Causeway from this trailhead. It wasn't long before I was forced to strap on may gaiters to wade through knee-deep snow. The cliffs on the south side of the Causeway towered above me, and beautiful spines of water trickled down them. I could tell from the amount of snow still remaining on top that my ten-mile loop was probably over-ambitious. I instead re-set my goal to reach just the Causeway itself.
After over an hour of struggling through snow, I finally reached the bottom of the steep bowl. From close range it was steeper and more foreboding than it had appeared from a distance. A wide cornice at the top blocked any easy passage and the only way around it was up the steepest part of the slope. I could see, however, that people had been skiing down my route, but the tracks were old and faded, and it was clear that nobody had been this way for quite some time. After a lengthy ponder, I decided that to try the ascent alone on such a windy day was not the best decision. Despite being equipped with crampons, an ice-axe, and gaiters, I reluctantly decided to turn back.
I stopped for a snack at a flat spot on the trail overlooking Little Causeway Lake and had the distinct impression that the entire basin was on display only for me. There was not a sign or sound of any human activity. The only noises, in fact, were the warbling of birds and the squishy gurgle of the melting snowpack. It was truly magical moment.
At the end of the hike I knew that my training was officially over. For the past three months (the last month especially) I have been working hard to prepare for our long awaited summer of mountaineering. The time has come at last for the real adventure to begin.
After over an hour of struggling through snow, I finally reached the bottom of the steep bowl. From close range it was steeper and more foreboding than it had appeared from a distance. A wide cornice at the top blocked any easy passage and the only way around it was up the steepest part of the slope. I could see, however, that people had been skiing down my route, but the tracks were old and faded, and it was clear that nobody had been this way for quite some time. After a lengthy ponder, I decided that to try the ascent alone on such a windy day was not the best decision. Despite being equipped with crampons, an ice-axe, and gaiters, I reluctantly decided to turn back.
I stopped for a snack at a flat spot on the trail overlooking Little Causeway Lake and had the distinct impression that the entire basin was on display only for me. There was not a sign or sound of any human activity. The only noises, in fact, were the warbling of birds and the squishy gurgle of the melting snowpack. It was truly magical moment.
At the end of the hike I knew that my training was officially over. For the past three months (the last month especially) I have been working hard to prepare for our long awaited summer of mountaineering. The time has come at last for the real adventure to begin.
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