I left town about 6:30 Wednesday evening, and drove to Johnson Village, arriving around 9:00. I paid for my room at the Alpine Motel ($33), refueled the truck, and settled in for a few hours’ sleep. I was not asleep when the alarm went off at 4:00. By 4:45, I was pulling out of the motel’s parking area, and heading for the mountain. Shortly after I turned south into Baldwin Gulch just west of the old site of Alpine, I came to understand what the authors of my guidebook considered “a rocky jeep road.” At the bottom, it had been posted as a “dangerous four-wheel-drive road,” and for “experienced drivers only.” Steep, narrow, rutted and strewn with large rocks, the road twice stopped me, making me back-up and retry these sections — five or six times, in one case — in the pre-dawn darkness. After I had negotiated two of the two and one-half miles which the guidebook claimed were passable, I had had enough, and parked in a convenient turn-out. I started up the remainder of the jeep road in the growing light. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I reached the creek crossing which the guidebook recommended as a good place to stop driving and start walking. As I followed the jeep road across the creek and up Antero’s western flanks, I was amused to find that it actually became less rocky. As it climbed above treeline, the jeep road switchbacked across the mountain’s southwest shoulders, then swung around to the peak’s south side. There, it climbed to just above the gem mine at 13,500 feet, then ended at the rocky terminus of Antero’s south ridge. I followed a trail across the fairly level south end of the ridge, staying to the east side of the rugged crest. Once across this rocky part — perhaps only a quarter of a mile in length — I started up the remaining couple hundred feet of talus, and reached the summit at 10:30. I was joined on the talus by Denzel and Linda, ex-Lovelanders making their home in Virginia. Both in their forties, they had climbed seven fourteeners in six days, in preparation for the Pikes Peak Marathon the following weekend. We climbed the last stretch together, and took the typical pictures of each other on the summit. Most of the Sawatch range lay before us to the north, and Tabeguache and Shavano were just a few miles south of us. Watered, fed and refreshed, Denzel, Linda and I started down at 11:00. Denzel had kindly offered me a ride from the creek crossing, where he had parked his Bronco, down to my truck, so I made a point of not lagging too far behind. Clouds had been building during our climb, and by the time we had descended to within a couple hundred feet of treeline, light rain and hail were falling. As so often happens, there was just enough precipitation to warrant raingear; when the raingear was put on, the precipitation quit. We made few stops on our descent and kept up an energetic pace. By 1:30, we had arrived back at the creek crossing, and I gratefully accepted the bone-jarring half-mile ride down to my truck. Descending the remainder of Baldwin Gulch in the full light of day, I was, er, surprised — no, astonished — by some of the terrain I had driven up earlier that day. Intimidated, too: the two-mile descent took about twenty minutes. The dirt road from Alpine back down toward Mount Princeton Hot Springs seemed like an expressway after Baldwin Gulch. It had been Denzel’s and Linda’s twenty-third fourteener, and my eighth. And while it hadn’t been a particularly photogenic peak, nor an especially interesting climb (Longs is a hard act to follow) it was my first Sawatch summit.

Warning: Mountain climbing entails certain risks and can be a dangerous activity. Many Colorado peaks have seen climbing fatalities. The most common factors in mountaineering accidents are poor judgement, inadequate physical conditioning and improper equipment. When faced with bad weather, fatigue or terrain that may be beyond your abilities, turn back. The mountain will still be there when you’re stronger, more experienced or better-equipped for another attempt. And remember: the summit is only the halfway point. Many accidents occur while a party is descending from the summit. If you climb, do not rely solely on the information contained herein. Do not assume that the route descriptions are completely accurate. The route descriptions were written after-the-fact from memory, and human memory is fallible. In addition, many factors (especially weather) can cause a route that is normally a “walk-up” to become a serious, hazardous proposition. Thoroughly research your route, have appropriate equipment, anticipate sudden and drastic changes in alpine weather, and know your abilities and limitations. Seek professional instruction before climbing, and build your climbing skills gradually: climb several easier peaks before attempting a more difficult route. Don’t become a statistic!

Text and photo(s) copyright © 2001 Mark R. Vanderbrook.
All rights reserved.