Northeast Slopes via McCullough Gulch

The campsite

I did this mountain with my friend Ethan and my dog Zoe. We camped at a wonderful spot down in the McCullough Gulch. We arrived at the spot late on a Friday evening (7/27/2007). We were right next to a very large pristine beaver pond (I was wishing I brought my fly-rod). About 10 minutes after we arrived some college kids from Boulder showed up and wanted to tag along on our campsite. Being the solitude types, we declined but of course that did not stop them. They parked their car and carried all of their gear up a large hillside and camped above us. This is one thing I hate about the mountains... alas, I digress.

The hike up the valley

We woke up the next morning very early at 4 AM and ate breakfast. We were on the trail by 5 AM and started up the long valley. We hiked from our campsite which was about a mile from the trailhead. After about an hour of hiking this was our view back down the valley.

Shortly thereafter we were able to gain the middle part of the valley and reach the lake at 11,920 ft.

Once we reached the top of the valley we were able to gain great views of Fletcher and Pacific.

The horrible ridge gain and the Summit

And then we saw our route... a nasty scree scramble. Should be fun!

Once we were able to gain the ridge after much swearing and hated scree sliding, this was our view of Fletcher:

After a fairly straight-forward ridge scramble that was not so easy on the paws for my lab, we were able to reach the summit. I think Zoe was happy to reach the top and see the great views of the valley we just came from! This picture is right before the summit on the actual ridge going up to Fletcher.

From the summit we were able to see all of the sheep, er, I mean 14'er climbers on Quandary. The views of Quandary were striking due to the weather that had moved in.

Zoe took a nice nap on the summit.

I was so eager to eat that I cut myself with my knife. I never thought I would use Duct tape to repair a deep cut... but alas!

Shortly thereafter, we decided to move back off the summit and back down, but not before taking a few pictures of the great views we had of Wheeler Mountain and Pt 13,698:

Images

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