| East Ridge, Scattered Snow Showers, 4-30-2006 Trip Report |
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| East Ridge, Scattered Snow Showers, 4-30-2006   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: Apr 30, 2006 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Spring | Page By: altitude14er Created/Edited: May 3, 2006 / May 6, 2006 Object ID: 191753 Hits: 629 Loading... Page Score: 74.97% - 3 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Getting Above The Trees I had been considering an ascent of Humboldt Peak in the spring since the beginning of 2006. After learning about the shorter east ridge route on summitpost (a route that isn't in any of my guidebooks) I was stoked. My friend Mark suggested we climb it and that is all it took. I picked up Mark (Summit Post - asphazell) at 4:30am and we sped off. I had never driven down highway 96 from Pueblo before. Once we neared the valley that nestles Westcliffe the true teeth of the Sangre de Cristo range revealed themselves. I pulled my car over and took the photo at top right. The weather was clear and crisp and the day was looking promising. The Sangre's had some fresh snow on them though, probably from Saturday. It didn't look like enough to slow our ambitions.
We parked my car at the 2wd parking lot and geared up. We strolled through the cool morning air down the south colony lake road. It climbed steadily through the forest and didn't have much snow on it leading up to the rainbow trail junction. At this junction we took the designated right turn. The rainbow trail was covered with 6-8 inches of fresh snow. We stomped through it mashing down the easy trail. After a short walk, Mark suggested we leave the trail and begin our bushwack up towards the east ridge. I declined, arguing we should go further north on the rainbow trail. Bad choice. After about another mile I told Mark I thought we should begin bushwacking upwards through the dense forest. We did, and found the going tough. Due to the fresh snow and warm temperatures we found ourselves sliding and slipping while hiking along a moderate slope. Neither one of us was sure if we were going to top out on the east ridge or not. We neared treeline and had to strap on the snowshoes (MSR's to be exact). It was tedius work getting to treeline. Even with snowshoes we sunk through the wet snow. When we topped out above the trees it became obvious that we were on the east ridge; only on a northern extension of it. We had definitely went too far north and added some unecessary distance. I felt bad for misleading our efforts but was greatful that we had still gained the right ridge. It had been hard to make it out in the dense forest - visibility of the surrounding tundra had been poor :( High On The East Ridge
I think me and Mark were pretty happy to finally be above trees. It was nice to have the doubt removed. Doubt that when we got above the trees, we'd discover that we were on the wrong peak. The east ridge didn't have much snow on it and we removed the snowshoes. The ridge was a long slog. As we ascended to around 12,500ft. a small storm blew in. It quickly became a white out of mild proportions. Mark had fallen about 100ft. behind me and I was concerned I might loose sight of him. As we climbed the ridge higher we were intermittently hit by the scattered showers predicted by Denver meteorologist (They aren't always wrong!). These brief storms would be followed by clear skys. I was concerned that we would summit during one of these white outs and it would ruin any chance of summit photos. Luckily not the case! By the time we were a half mile from the summit we were both pretty tired. The snow near treeline had taken something from us but we wouldn't be turned away. At 4:30pm we summited...a late one. Pathetically, we had left the car 8 hours before. This wasn't the best climb to do as a warm-up, Mark had discovered. I was greatful that I had been working out alot as of late because I still found this peak to be pretty tough given the snow below treeline. Who would have thought...on a peak like Humboldt.
We descended via a drainage southeast of the summit. We had high hopes for a glissade but found ourselves needing snowshoes. We aimed at descending the south side of the peak and bumping into the S. Colony Lake road. It worked, but was a tough bushwack. About a mile and a half to the car and it was almost dark. We spotted some very well defined Black Bear prints but it was too dark to photograph :( Via the darkness of night, we reached my car with headlamps on at 8:55pm. What a day. The sparce lights of Westcliffe provided a nice reminder that we were heading back to "civilization". The scattered showers followed my car all the way home. I pulled into the parking lot of my condo at 12:40am.
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Sangre de Cristo Mountains
