Oh sugary sweet Pikes Peak
March 10, 2017
This is our mountain and we hardly have scraped the surface
of the excellent climbing routes found on Pikes Peak. Laura and I have both
summited the 14,115’ mountain by both standard routes – The Crags and Barr
Trail, but have not done a lot of exploring and climbing on other areas of the
mountain. Last year we climbed both Zeb's Arete and Rumdoodle Ridge – great
starter climbs on Pikes.
It is still wintertime, but not much snow will be
found up on the big mountain. “Whatever, lets go up to glen cove and explore and see what we come
across.” And so the plan is set. We head up to the tollgate at 9 am, but as we
arrive, Laura asks if I put her b
Usually snow covered, direct lines to the devils playground area, the W was almost non existent.
We walked about 20 minutes up a hill to the base of the far right line. Normally WI2, M2, steep snow – we found sugar snow about a foot deep with no traction whatsoever. We figured we’d still get a short climb in so up the couloir we went. Over the first block with a few 5.5 moves in crampons and on to the sweet sugar snow I went. I set up a great belay with a few cams in a crack and brought Laura up. She climbed the snow for a few hundred feet to the next rock section of the climb. Again, I led through the rock and placed protection to clip the rope to as I climbed. One more time and then to the final rock section we arrived. Usually from here the climb is a simple snow climb to the exit of the couloir but today the snow was simply not stable enough to walk on. We chose to scramble up the rock area to the right instead and headed to Devils Playground. From the base of the climb to Devils Playground took us just over 2 hours. We started walking down the road and eventually found someone kind enough to give us a ride in the back of his pickup. A few minutes later we jumped in our car and headed down the highway on our way to a good friends party who just beat cancer. Nothing better than sugar sweet snow and a good friend with the opportunity to spend life with his family!
It is still wintertime, but not much snow will be
found up on the big mountain. “Whatever, lets go up to glen cove and explore and see what we come
across.” And so the plan is set. We head up to the tollgate at 9 am, but as we
arrive, Laura asks if I put her bUsually snow covered, direct lines to the devils playground area, the W was almost non existent.
We walked about 20 minutes up a hill to the base of the far right line. Normally WI2, M2, steep snow – we found sugar snow about a foot deep with no traction whatsoever. We figured we’d still get a short climb in so up the couloir we went. Over the first block with a few 5.5 moves in crampons and on to the sweet sugar snow I went. I set up a great belay with a few cams in a crack and brought Laura up. She climbed the snow for a few hundred feet to the next rock section of the climb. Again, I led through the rock and placed protection to clip the rope to as I climbed. One more time and then to the final rock section we arrived. Usually from here the climb is a simple snow climb to the exit of the couloir but today the snow was simply not stable enough to walk on. We chose to scramble up the rock area to the right instead and headed to Devils Playground. From the base of the climb to Devils Playground took us just over 2 hours. We started walking down the road and eventually found someone kind enough to give us a ride in the back of his pickup. A few minutes later we jumped in our car and headed down the highway on our way to a good friends party who just beat cancer. Nothing better than sugar sweet snow and a good friend with the opportunity to spend life with his family!
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