Although I had originally selected Humboldt Peak as my gentle, first-of-the-season climb for the year, record-setting snowpack had made access to that peak questionable. Casting about for another good candidate for the first (official) climb of the season — and one with an accessible trailhead — I decided to try Uncompahgre. I left town Sunday at 12:25, my truck loaded with camping and climbing gear.
Five hours and one intense hailstorm later, I was in Lake City. Stopping only briefly to review the directions to the trailhead, I set out again, up the well-maintained dirt road along Henson Creek. At the junction with the road up Nellie Creek, I stopped and locked the hubs, shifted into 4L, and started up the rocky jeep road. It wasn’t long before I was extremely glad I had four-wheel drive.
Other than being steep and rough, the road wasn’t too bad, except for the two spots where it crossed a roaring, racing Nellie Creek. Record-setting snowpack and warm temperatures were contributing to a fierce runoff, and Nellie Creek was carrying its foaming, frothing share.
By about 6:30, I was at the trailhead. Here I met a family of Texans and their obstinate Jeep. They had taken a three-hour hike up to the base of the peak and returned, only to find that their transportation wasn’t. So we put Mom behind the wheel, and Dad and I pushed the Jeep a short distance to a downgrade, where she popped the clutch and got it running.
I was ready to follow them down to one of several delightful-looking camping spots I had eyed on the way up, when I found one not 50 yards from the trailhead. I pitched my tent, somehow managing to suffer only a single mosquito bite in the process, then started boiling water for my meal-in-a-cup. At about 8:45, after a relaxing stroll through the forest, and with light fading from the sky, I settled in for the night.
I got my usual, terrible night’s sleep, and “awoke” to the chirping of my alarm at 4:45. There was no real light yet, so I groaned and rolled over. By 5:00, I had worked up enough energy to start the day, and started putting on my climbing clothes.
After my usual baggie-breakfast of granola with instant milk — eaten very carefully with my pot handle, a spoon having been forgotten in the packing — I set off. Signing-in at the trailhead register, I checked my watch. 5:55. I was right on schedule.
The trail climbed steadily through the forest along upper Nellie Creek. As I hiked along, I was pleased to note that not a single cloud marred the early morning sky. At one point, the trail crossed a small patch of snow, then became markedly weaker. Finally, I found myself without a trail, and had to climb to the north up a loose slope right above the rushing creek. At the top of this slope I again found the main trail, and a pair of healthy cairns. Apparently, I was not the only one to make this bushwhack; the reasons for the cairns would become clear on the descent.
By now, the peak — which had not been visible from the trailhead — was in plain view to the west. The north face was clearly near-vertical, and some spectacular, abrupt cuts interrupted the southeast ridge, making me curious as to just where the trail would dodge the difficulties. As I crossed treeline, it became increasingly apparent that the vast majority of the trail above me lay yet under a mantle of summer snow, and that some degree of route-finding would be necessary. This outing in particular, I was glad to have a topo map along.
Using
map and altimeter, I followed the approximate route of the trail westward
into the upper drainage, then angled toward the south, aiming for the obvious,
80+ foot promontory poised on the peak’s southeast ridge. I was now
crossing low-angle snowfields below a sheer-faced protuberance that projected
eastward off the ridge. Most of the snow was in pretty fair shape, but I
found my share of weak, rotten snow that collapsed readily under my weight,
slowing my progress.
Still, I was making adequate time, and once south of the sheer-faced bluff, I abandoned the route of the trail, which actually swung back to the east before gaining the ridge. I headed west, directly up snowfields, to gain a small saddle on the ridge, where I was rewarded with striking first views of Matterhorn and Wetterhorn Peaks, still largely covered with snow.
From this saddle, the trail — still mostly buried under snow — wound up a steep slope on the east side of a major cut in the ridge. A pair of energetic marmots chased each other up and down this slope as I doggedly ascended. At the top of the slope, above the cut, I was presented with a rugged-looking final 500 feet of cliffs, towers and steep, loose gullies. Here much of the snow had blown off, and I was thankful to have the trail to follow once again. It dodged the difficulties to the west, depositing me at the bottom of one of the shorter and less peril-fraught gullies. I scrambled about 80 feet of loose scree, and crusty snow and a little ice, yet untouched by the sun’s warmth, and found myself on easier terrain. Fifteen to 20 minutes of talus-hopping alongside a dying snowdrift brought me to the lower, southern part of the large summit plateau, where I counted at least six rock windbreaks, some large and healthy-looking, others having suffered the vicissitudes of a tough winter at 14,000 feet with no evidence of repair. On this pitch, I spotted an animal I had never seen before in the wild. At first glance, it looked like a weasel, long and sleek, and with the color of a red fox, save for its feet, which were black. It stopped very briefly, about 20 feet away, examined me suspiciously, then disappeared among the rocks. I concluded I had just had my first close encounter with a wild ferret. Possibly a black-footed ferret.
A short stroll across the tundra brought me to the summit, where yet more marmots where enjoying the bright blue sky and the warm weather. It was 9:55. I didn’t immediately spot the summit register, so I strolled over to another high point at the northwest end of the summit plateau. I took the usual batch of summit photos, but forgot to make a self-portrait. Then I found the USGS marker, and took a picture of that. I strolled back to the southern high point, and finally located the threaded plastic cylinder containing the summit register, and signed it. I had seen no one else climbing below me, and began to suspect I would have the peak to myself.
After some relaxation, and food and water — and some unsuccessful attempts to get close enough for a really spectacular marmot picture — I prepared to start down. I could gladly have spent much more time atop that pleasant summit, with the warm sunshine, the cool breeze and the playful marmots and chipmunks for company, but I knew that the snow conditions below were deteriorating as the day warmed up, so I collected my gear and started down at 10:30.
The descent was pretty routine. I tried to reverse my ascent route as reliably as possible, and with two exceptions, I did a pretty fair job of it. The first deviation found me descending a different, but similar gully off the west side of the ridge. This one was to the north of the gully I had ascended; at the bottom, I followed a trail segment I did not recognize across scree and talus, past the base of my ascent gully (which I photographed).
The snow was considerably slushier than it had been earlier, and I had to wade through deep stuff from time to time. As I descended, I aimed for a trail segment that wasn’t snow-covered, and was soon back at the large cairn above the section I had bushwhacked on the ascent. Since the trail was now clear and strong below the cairn, I decided to explore the reasons why I had somewhere abandoned the trail and earned myself the bushwhack: I set off down the trail. This was my second deviation.
After perhaps 10 minutes I had my answer. I found myself at the top of a steep slope where the trail switchbacked sharply down; the slope it ascended was buried in a massive, nearly vertical snowdrift, complete with cornice. There was no safe way down it, and the only possible route around it looked steep and loose; I cursed my curiosity and resigned myself to climbing back to the cairn, then reversing the bushwhack. If the 2900 vertical feet I had climbed to the summit were less than the 3000 needed for a “legitimate” climb, I surely passed the 3000-foot mark getting back to the cairn.
The rest of the descent was a pleasant stroll from the cairn at treeline back down, through the trees, to the trailhead and my campsite, which I reached at 1:10. I gleefully yanked off my soggy boots, poured the water out of them, and traded my waterlogged socks for dry ones; then I changed out of my climbing clothes into normal attire, and began taking down the tent. By 1:50 I was pulling onto the Nellie Creek road. One hour and two somewhat exciting creek crossings later, I was calling in my success from a pay phone at the grocery store in Lake City. By about 2:50, I was enroute Gunnison for gasoline and a hamburger, and I pulled into my driveway at 7:50.
