The Real Z - Pikes Peak

July 23, 2017

Zeb’s Arête, Pikes Peak

5.6 700’

For the second weekend in a row Laura and I were headed up to Pikes Peak. This time we were hoping to climb what we had intended to the prior weekend. Zeb’s Arête is a  700’, 5.6 climb that is commonly mistaken with Rumdoodle Ridge. We did this last week and still had a blast but were both looking forward to completing our original objective.

7:30 am we arrived at the toll gate to once again find a line to get on the Pike's Peak highway. It's amazing how many people are willing to pay the outrageous $15 per person fee to drive up this mountain! The city of Colorado Springs sure knows how to make money!

By 8:30 am we were at our parking spot near the summit and were walking down a steep scree field toward the base of the arête. Eventually we were able to access the actual ridge. We geared up and roped together and both were climbing shortly thereafter.

Once again this was good practice for our upcoming trip to Switzerland. We decided to simu-climb, roped together with only about 30 feet of rope out between us. I placed protection where I felt necessary and we climbed together, speeding up the traditional lead/follow process that is standard with most rock climbing. We climbed several rope lengths until we reached the crest of the arête, traversed across and down several times and within two hours were at the summit of our intended route for the day.

Another day in the mountains with great weather, excellent views and the best company anyone could ask for.  

14er with the Doc

Thursday July 20, 2017.
Mt. Lindsey
14,042 via NW Ridge

Just 3 weeks ago, Randy tends to my foot and says "Take it easy for a while". I didn't but still planned to hike a 14er with him since we missed the opportunity in 2016.  We had planned to follow up our Castle and Conundrum 14er trip with another trip to the Elk mountains of Colorado. We make an effort to plan an annual trip to tackle a more difficult peak since I have the experience in variable terrain. Randy is at about 35 14ers. I have summited all 58 in Colorado as well as Mt Rainier in Washington and am currently working on the 15 California 14ers with Laura who has also completed CO and WA. For Randy, it is a step toward making the CMC published list of 14er finishers in Colorado, currently at about 1,700 individuals.

The weather outlook was terrible for our intended mountain, Pyramid Peak near Aspen, so I made the recommendation to head for the Sangres in southern CO. The weather looked clear and Mt. Lindsey fit the bill. By the standard route, it is fairly straight forward, but by our route you encounter about 1,000 feet of rock scrambling, some light climbing and a ton of exposure thrown in for excitement.

As we drove to the trailhead around 5:30 am, we saw elk, deer and even a bear. The bear was at a ranch and likely raiding the dumpster. When it saw us drive by, it took off running full speed. At 20 mph, he passed us and jumped the fence just a few feet in front of our car and landed almost half way through the road. Before we knew it, he was gone. Randy decided the name of the ranch should be changed to Flying Bear Ranch. A fitting name for sure.










We arrived to the trailhead around 6:30 am and began hiking through the swampy trail and across a creek. There was a large downed tree to balance across using long limbs as poles for balance. I almost fell in but Randy made it safely across. Back on the trail we hiked a few miles of easy terrain. First through a field full of wildflowers, then a forest and finally an open valley with views of the surrounding mountains.

Finally at the ridge crest, we can see the remainder of our route to the summit. After scrambling for a few hundred feet, we reached the headwall and most difficult portion of the route. It is about 50 feet of difficult class 4 climbing. No ropes required, but a fall would most certainly be fatal here. Up and over the false summit and along a ridge for 10 minutes or so and we had reached the summit of yet another great Colorado peak!

 We took in the views of nearby 14ers Blanca Peak and Ellingwood Point, The Great Sand Dunes and The Crestone group in the distance. Randy poured a glass of wine for each of us as we toasted the business group where we met years ago. We hung out for a half hour before heading down with a lingering question about the sand dunes. Why is Star Dune the highest and why does it never change? Sand moves, right?

The Unknown - Pikes Peak

Hey man, do you think I could get some info on the north side of Pikes Peak? I hear there are some awesome routes up there. Asking my friend last year after he told me that some of the best alpine pitches he'd climbed are in our backyard. Information on this area is almost non-existent but here is what I learned. "Park below the summit, walk north until you can access the arete". Sweet, that's all I needed to get on this special route. After looking at topo maps and pictures, I figured out the route and knew we were in for a treat. I had read that you'd better be prepared for full on adventure factor and this was very true. We did not see any evidence that a climber had ever climbed our route, but know that it sees maybe 5 ascents each season.

Laura and I left home at 7 am and got to the toll gate on Pikes Peak at 7:20. We drove the Pikes Peak Highway to the summit and looked around. The morning was crisp and the sky blue so we hung out for a few minutes and then headed down the road to find our parking area.

By 8:20, we were walking, first down the Crags trail, then to a steep gully that took us 700 feet down to the base of the arete. We didn't have any information but knew that the route was rated about 5.6, so we picked a starting point, geared up and started climbing. The first few pitches were wet an mossy so I chose to have Laura belay me until we got to more solid ground.

After about 200 feet of climbing, we began simu-climbing - both moving at the same time with only a few pieces of protection between us. This is something we will be doing a lot of on our Switzerland mountains and was one of the reasons we chose this climb.

We made our way through a maze of boulders and ledges to finally find ourselves on the actual arete. We estimated 8 pitches, all climbed in about 2 hours time. After wandering along the edge for another hour, we made our finish point. We took some pictures and headed for the car pleased that we had a great adventure for the day and looking forward to the next time we can get on this spectacular north face of Americas Mountain.

Holy Cross Wilderness

July 1-2, 2017

My ankle has been bothering me for about 2 weeks now so I went to the doctor to see if we could correct the problem. He told me low impact hiking was okay but didn't put any limitation on mileage. I took that as an opening to plan a visit to a place I have wanted to get back to since hiking the 14,000 foot peak, Mt. of the Holy Cross in 2013. I recalled the Holy Cross Wilderness being a special place and was looking forward to doing some light backpacking in the area. Laura and I did a bit of research and learned that most of the passes were still snowed in. We looked at some maps and put together what looked like about a 30 mile loop through the heart of the wilderness and encompassing Mt. of the Holy Cross itself.

We arrived at what would be our end trail head around mid morning Saturday to a parking area full of day hikers. We had planned to park low on the 4 wheel drive road and hopefully catch a ride to to top to avoid having a shuttle vehicle or 6 miles of road walking to reach our start trail head. After being passed by about 7 vehicles, most with empty seats but some full, a couple stopped to pick us up. They happened to be heading to our trail head. Their dogs sat on our laps as we rode up the bumpy dirt road for about 45 minutes chatting about where each of us were headed for the weekend. We were happy to have received a ride from such a cool couple and let them know that we would return the favor to someone down the line.

Laura and I hiked around 10 miles the first day to an alpine lake just beyond Fall Creek Pass. We figured this would be a good stopping point for the night before heading to Holy Cross City, an old mining area the next morning. We had an enjoyable dinner, watched the sun set and relaxed by the lake before retiring to our tent for the night.

The next morning we went and explored Holy Cross City and made our way over the snowy Fancy Pass. We stopped to have lunch at one of the many alpine lakes and chatted about plans for the rest of the day. This side of the loop had far heavier snow melt than we experienced the day before and thus led to massive mosquito populations. We would spray ourselves down with bug spray and still be eaten alive if we were not moving.

We decided that we would see how we felt when we got to our next camp and make a decision on if we wanted to hike all the way out or deal with the mosquitoes for the evening. By the time we got to the meadow where we planned to camp for the night, we decided that we had enough of the mosquitoes and were going to push on and hike out to the car. This made the second day about a 20 miler, but still didn't get our spirits down. The scenery was exceptional and Laura and I enjoyed each others company in this beautiful area.