Over the years, the initially intimidating Peak C in the Gore Range has become like an old friend. I seem to know it pretty well by now and thus feel comfortable on and around its flanks. Its one of those peaks many folks see from the first time from Piney Lake and let out a “whoa, is this what the Gore Range is about?” Well, in a word “yes”.

Peak C is special. It has steep snow climbing routes, a solid couloir for a ski descent, scrambling routes, and technical alpine routes. It has it all. Peak C really can be viewed from anywhere in Eagle County, but is especially visible from Vail Mountain with its prominent southwest couloir. The view of its technical north face and northwest ridge from Mt. Powell are always awe-inspiring. Its not easily discernible from other Gore summits to the south.

My first climb up Peak C was via its southwest couloir in November of 2007 with Rainier, Ryan Aldrich, & Mikey Johnson. It was a great snow climb and had some great ridge scrambling including a class 4 headwall right out of the notch between Peak C and Peak C-Prime to start its south ridge.

Fast forward 2 years and Kristine, myself, J, Chris Carlsen, Rainier, & Kona climbed and skied the southwest couloir in May of 2009. Despite being sloppy heavy mashed potatoes in which Rainier set off a wet slide herself and ended up riding it down the couloir into the apron below chasing snow balls (think very slow moving) and an ominous thunderstorm forcing us to speed up our climb and ski descent, it was a great day.

Again, fast forward 2 more years to September 2011 and you have me, J, and Caleb Wray scrambling the Ripsaw Ridge traverse from Peak C to Peak G. This was the first time I had climbed the southwest couloir without snow and it is a bit tedious and dangerous with rockfall. However, once on the ridge proper, it was a solid day out with those boys.

I had looked at the northwest ridge of Peak C for years wondering if there was a way up it. Then, that wonderment sort of faded away with all of the other adventures we had going on between 2007 and 2014 until my buddy Ryan Marsters and his partner Derek climbed the northwest ridge as an exciting start to their day of traversing Ripsaw Ridge. I remember reading their report and seeing the topo of the route and my interest was piqued once again.

I thought it would be a great moderate alpine climb for Kristine & myself as it had been awhile since the two of us got out all day together. Fortunately, our friend Sabrina was willing to come over at 5am to start watching Sawyer. That’s the problem with what we like to do and having a baby. Rarely do babysitters like to come over during the wee hours of the morning. It was just so nice of her. Anyway, I had planned this for a week or two thinking the Sunday was going to be this bluebird sunny day of weather per the forecast. Well, it couldn’t have been more wrong. Let’s just say I was a bit frustrated with the weather gods. My good buddy Brian Miller calls NOAA “No Obligation to Anything Accurate”. He couldn’t be more right in that statement. I think its more frustrating for obvious reasons when you really can’t do this stuff together like in the good ole days anytime we please. And, when things don’t go according to plan, the frustration is amplified because you know we can’t just come out again the next day together because of our responsibilities at home.

We got on the Upper Piney Lake trail by 6:30am and were at Kneeknocker Pass (almost 5 miles later and 3,000′ of vertical gain) at 9am. I was hoofing it just to keep up with Kristine. It was a fine pace we had going. Peak C had been engulfed in clouds all morning and the wind was whipping at the pass and it was fairly frigid. Based on the forecast, we really only had a lightweight layer each under our mini-down jackets. This was not nearly enough. We had one pair of gloves between us. We found some boulders at the pass to take shelter from the west wind, which helped a lot. However, we were both still shivering. Kristine was shivering quite a bit and so cold. I felt like when the forecast calls for sun and blue sky this stuff usually burns off. So, we waited for 30 minutes and then traversed south over the small hump to the upper saddle and found the base of the route and the 5.2 chimney pitch, which was fortunately on the eastern (leeward) side of the ridge proper. We still couldn’t see the upper portion of Peak C as it was still engulfed in clouds and the wind was whipping, but we had to give it a go. We broke out our alpine rack, harnesses, helmets, and my 30m/8mm rope and I began my lead up the pitch. After placing two cams at the small 5.2 crux sections, I set up a belay when Kristine called out that I had 5 ft of rope remaining. I then belayed Kristine up.

She was still shivering uncontrollably and we both think the cold was sapping some of her mental strength and drive not to mention her physical strength. She belayed me up to the ledge another 40′ up placing one cam along the way and I looked around, but decided not to belay her up as we agreed it was time to turn around. Conditions were not good and neither of us wanted Kristine scrambling on 4th class terrain shivering and not being totally focused.  As hard as it was to turn back, it was the right thing to do. I downclimbed back to Kristine, lowered her down from the belay, and then I downclimbed/rappelled back to the base of the route. As defeated as we were for a bit, we soon realized we were lucky to get out together for 9 hours alone and enjoy each other and the Gore Range whether we tagged a summit or not.

Kristine, being the wonderful and loving wife that she is, wanted me to go back for this route. J and I were contemplating going back for Capitol’s northwest buttress the following weekend, but Peak C was fresh in my mind so I convinced J to come with me. Plus, I wanted to check out a route up the north face of Peak C-Prime (the next summit south of Peak C along Ripsaw Ridge). The weather forecast again looked stellar. Fortunately, NOAA got it right this day. Just bluebird skies and sun all day long. Fall weather had certainly arrived. I picked J up at 6am and we were hiking along the Upper Piney Trail by 6:45am. I wish fall weather like last Saturday would last a few months – its the best. We cruised up to Kneeknocker Pass in about 2-1/2 hours as Kristine and I had done 5 days prior. The weather was a complete 180 from what it had been with Kristine the past Sunday. We ran into John & Jennifer Danese of Silverthorne right on top of the pass. We had never met, but had corresponded quite a bit and we both knew each other would be on the trail that day as they were gunning for Mt. Powell. They had inquired with me a year or two ago about “the next big thing to do” with regards to their hiking and mountaineering outside of Colorado. So, I connected them with my great friend Rob Casserley who runs Trek8848 for Everest basecamp treks and trekking peaks and they went with Rob last fall and had the time of their lives summitting both Lobuche East and Island Peak (20,000’+ peaks in the Khumbu Valley). It was great to finally meet them. So, after 30 minutes of chit-chat, J and I traversed south over to the start of the northwest ridge of Peak C and the Daneses went for Mt. Powell.

Most of our climb was in the shade and was quite chilly. Fortunately, there wasn’t a cold stiff wind like there was with Kristine. On the traverse to the start of the route we noticed a good looking Rocky Mountain Goat eyeing us intently as if saying “hey, why are you guys coming onto my mountain?” Little did we know he would follow us the entire climb and over to Peak C-Prime.

I won’t go into the route description here as Ryan & Derek do an excellent job with that on their climb here. J took the 1st 5.2 pitch, placed a cam, set up an anchor, and belayed me up. Normally, on solid rock, J and I would have no problem free-soloing this pitch, but the loose rock really makes this a scary proposition. The rope and a few pieces of protection are good insurance. Plus, we’re both dads now 🙂

We then swapped leads, I placed another cam on a sling and then set up an anchor on a ledge to belay J up to me. We only had a 30m rope, but with a 60m rope, you could do this entire pitch in one fell swoop.

We needed to get left into the class 3 gully somehow. We decided to stay roped up and swapped leads again and J took the headwall straight on placing a cam on a sling at the crux. There may be an easier way to get in the gully, but this was a fun little move. J belayed me up and we coiled the rope and climbed the easy gully for a few hundred feet before finding the grass ledge to the left which took us out into this really cool low-angled dihedral below a vertical headwall.

Instead of getting into the corner of the dihedral, we found the solid 4th class slabs just to the corner’s right side super fun. So, we didn’t break out the rope and just cruised these slabs for a hundred or two-hundred feet up to another ledge.

At the top of the corner dihedral and slabs was a small little grass basin followed by awesome class 4 block climbing up to the 5.4 crux move at the top of the headwall. This was really fun scrambling on super solid rock. I just loved it. We didn’t feel the need to break out the rope on the 5.4 crux as the rock was super solid. We both topped out and took in the views.

It was then a few hundred feet of class 3 scrambling to the summit of Peak C. I believe we topped out about 11am.

We relaxed on top for a bit and then started descending Peak C’s south ridge to the notch between Peak C and Peak C-Prime. Peak C-Prime’s awesome north ridge/face was in view the entire descent.

We hit the notch after the class 4 downclimb and I spotted a traverse on the ridge’s left (east) side that led to some fun looking north face cracks. After 30′ of class 4 climbing, we entered the center crack and the terrain got steeper.

J was eyeing the corner dihedral to the right (west) and not the center crack as he thought it looked more fun. He tried an airy move to get to the ledge below the dihedral only to realize he wanted the comfort of a rope. We roped up, he set two cams to protect the funky move, and soon enough he was on the ledge.

I followed and am certainly glad J asked for a belay. Its a committing move without great feet and sloping handholds, especially in approach shoes. Maybe a 5.8 move. The dihedral above looked fun. But, so did the center crack. Choices choices. I led on up the far western crack/dihedral combo placing a #2 cam in the crack and then a smaller piece on a sling in the dihedral itself on the right. Maybe 5.7 climbing with a few fun hand jams and face features.

I slung a solid boulder and looked down to J only noticing behind him that Mr. Goat was downclimbing the class 4 headwall on Peak C’s south ridge! It was a sight to behold.

Once J reached me we stowed the rope and de-harnessed and scrambled easy class 2/3 to the summit of Peak C-Prime.

Mr. Goat had climbed down Peak C’s southwest couloir a few hundred feet and climbed up Peak C-Prime’s normal class 3/4 route to meet up with us. I guess he wanted to hang out with us because he climbed the class 3 slabs up C-Prime’s southeast face to within 20 yards of us.

We took the standard descent couloir down from Peak C-Prime, which feeds into Peak C’s southwest couloir.  The descent down the southwest couloir is obviously much better on skis.

We then traversed northwest on the couloir’s apron to reach a small notch at the top of one of two northern couloirs leading back down into Kneeknocker Basin. It was a quick descent and before we knew it we were back on the Kneeknocker Pass trail. We saw the Daneses descending Kneeknocker Pass and decided to hang and wait for them to walk out together. They had spent an hour on Powell’s summit lounging and just talking in this gorgeous fall weather. It was fun hiking out together trading mountain stories back and forth with each other.

We arrived back at the trailhead around 4pm and promptly headed on out back to Vail. A great day out in the northern Gore on some familiar peaks yet up some new routes. Just perfect. I told Kristine now that I know the details of the northwest ridge route up Peak C, she and I will go back for sure. She will totally enjoy it as we found it to be a very moderate and fun technical alpine route in our favorite range.

After a little hiatus from Gore ridge traversing (primarily due to two little lovely ladies entering our respective worlds in the past 9 months), J and I finally got back out together and completed another solid ridge run in our favorite range. Honestly, I think my last Gore ridge run was before Sawyer was born on Rockinghorse Ridge with Brian Miller and Dillon Sarnelli, so I was excited to get back out, especially with J. We make a good tandem on these gnarlier ridge runs. We both love the route-finding, the exposed scrambling and alpine climbing feel, and the unknown – well, as unknown as you can realistically get this day and age. I had been corresponding with Stan Wagon on other Gore outings and adventures when I remembered he said he had traversed Red Diamond Ridge on the Red Peak massif and recalled it as one of his favorites and has done it three times since he and Bill Briggs’ likely first traverse of the ridge in 1994. I inquired as to the best approach for Red Diamond from Stan and the other beta I received was that he did use a rope. It was good enough for J and myself. The full Red Diamond Ridge stretches from the East East Red summit (12,885′) west over fairly mellow terrain to East Red (12,945′) and then west again through the “meat and potatoes” of the traverse to the main Red Peak summit (13,189′). I’ve seen Red Diamond up close a few times from Buffalo Mountain’s summit as well as from the north on Rain Peak’s east ridge and indeed it looked to be challenging. Even though the gnarliest section of Red Diamond between East Red and Red Peak is not even three-quarters of a mile, it is chock-full of spiciness.

After a not so great few hours of sleep the night before (like very little to none at all), I had trouble getting out of bed at 4:15am. However, I was determined to make this happen as J and I had not gotten out much together in the last while. And, with babies in our lives now, you have to make the most of what you got when you can. I felt sort of haggered most of the day from a lack of sleep, but still thoroughly enjoyed our outing. I mean what’s not to be excited about when adventuring in the Gores, right? I was completely gutted when I realized driving over Vail Pass that I left one of my most precious items in my car when we transferred to J’s car at 5:30am – my big Canon SLR camera. I was kicking myself as its always with me on my adventures. However heavy it is, its always worth carrying for the high resolution pics. Unfortunately on this day, we would be without it and rely on iphone pictures as our documentation. C’est la vie. I still have yet to be a phone picture convert – maybe I never will. I hope not.

We left the standard Buffalo Mountain Trailhead (Ryan Gulch Trailhead) around 6:30am and made good time up to the four-way intersection, stayed straight on the trail, and started descending down another mile to South Willow Creek and the intersection with the Gore Range Trail.  Per Stan’s recommendations, we left any signs of trail at this intersection (until Red Buffalo Pass 6.5 hours later) and continued due north through dense woods and began the off-trail bushwhacking. It actually wasn’t bad bushwhacking at all. Just a nice walk up through the woods albeit steep at that. We pretty much ascended Eat Red’s east ridge proper the entire time at times walking atop the steep southern cliffs above the South Willow Creek drainage all the while staring down Buffalo Mountain’s Silver Couloir.

We eventually broke through treeline and were able to view our options. We could have just remained on East Red’s east ridge over a few more bumps and another 1,500′, but we decided to descend a hundred vertical feet or so and cross the Middle Willow Creek basin to gain East East Red’s summit as a first objective. This was a beautiful basin with wildflowers galore. It cannot see much traffic.

We then made a 1,500′ climb up steep grass to east East Red’s summit topping out about 2 hours and 30 minutes after we began around 9am. I felt like we were making pretty good time. I wanted to be home my mid-afternoon so Kristine could go on a bike ride earlier than later in the day, but it turned out it needed to be an evening ride due to my lateness and ability to never seem to realize that things, especially traverses, take longer than they look like they will on a map 🙂 Very sorry about that, babe.

Nevertheless, it was a gorgeous morning and we made our way over the mellow bumps for approximately 3/4 of a mile to East Red’s summit arriving around 9:30am.

We didn’t stay long on East Red’s summit as we knew we had the bulk of the day ahead of us. Some minor class 3 scrambling led us down and up to the top of a large tower and a cliff edge. This was not downclimable at all. We could have rappelled and saw a few large solid blocks in which to anchor too, but we didn’t feel the need. We backtracked a hundred feet and found a class 4 downclimb to the south to reach the tower’s western base.

A relatively walkable section ensued until we came to some knife blade looking spires which were mighty enticing to try and climb, but for time’s sake and the fact that they looked extremely unstable as well as not gaining us anything (vertical-wise) because we needed to drop down anyway, we skirted just below them to the ridge’s north side on some class 3/4 rock.

It was then maybe two hundred feet of class 3/4 downclimbing to the low point saddle between East Red and Red Peak.

We then discussed our options as the direct route west of the low point looked to be extremely hard trad climbing and we only had a light alpine rack. Nevertheless, we spotted a steep gully feature about 10′ down to the saddle’s north that provided a weakness – the only weakness it seemed. To avoid a large boulder in the gully, which completely blocked upward progress, we strayed to the right and climbing a hundred feet of exposed 4th class/low 5th up a dihedral back to the ridge proper.

After a restful grass ledge, we glanced up at our next objective. A large 5th class looking tower with serious exposure on all sides. We searched for a viable route and I found a good looking 50′ dihedral on the tower’s northeast side in the shade. We scrambled to a very small ledge and roped up. The dihedral was probably no more than 5.4-5.5, but the exposure was very serious – thus the rope and rack. J and I were asking ourselves if we were getting a bit “conservative” in our old age, but then realized that we weren’t at all. I don’t believe we would have ever thought of free soling that especially not knowing if the holds were secure. I mean we’re family men now! A few good placements and we were up on the tower’s summit.

What came next looked to be simple enough until we realized the downward sloping nature of the ramp with very little holds on rock laden with lichen and big time exposure and drop offs on either side. Yes, we wanted the rope again. J belayed me from the tower’s summit and I placed a cam halfway down, set up an anchor where suitable at the end of the ramp, and brought J down to me.

We then downclimbed some class 4 rock to a small notch and made our way up to some nice grass ledges once again. What followed was a westward traverse over class 3/4 rock on the ridge’s north side as going to the ridge proper would not have gained us anything (vertical-wise). Plus, again, the ridge proper looked completely unstable with teetering blocks. This westward traverse on the ridge’s north side eventually led us down to another small saddle.

The large headwall in front of us had a leftward-trending steep grass ramp that we took hoping it would lead somewhere. The ramp was downclimbale if we got completely stuck, but easier ground above it gave way to some exposed but doable low 5th class climbing on the ridge’s north side to the summit of this headwall tower.

From this point on the ridge proper, delightful class 3/4 scrambling continued pretty much the rest of the way up to the summit ridge plateau of Red Peak. There were many lines to choose from, but in general we stayed on the ridge crest or slightly on the north side.

We were both saying to each other at this point that we felt pretty beat and just plain exhausted. We both believed we were a bit more tense (mentally) on this traverse than others. Obviously, being tense leads to expending extra energy. I chock it up to being just out of scrambling practice. It had been awhile. Nevertheless, we topped out on Red Peak’s summit ridge and traversed a few more ups and down before cresting the main Red Peak summit.

It was a fine summit. However, it was a bit breezy and thus chilly. We had our sandwiches and some Gatorade and water and then continued west to descend the south ridge down to the beautiful Red Buffalo Pass where we took a much needed rest.

It was such a gorgeous day and there wasn’t hardly a chance of any storms on the horizon. At this point, I got a text from good buddy Dillon Sarnelli who was on the Tenmile Traverse just on the other side of Buffalo Mountain and I70. What a day to do that traverse as well. Congrats to Dillon and Zambo. I had much more energy now and we cruised out the Gore Range Trail into the South Willow Creek drainage.

It was a beautiful deproach until we made the right turn onto the South Willow Creek trail split (where we had left the confines of any trail 6.5 hours earlier) and started the few hundred feet of vertical gain back up to the four-way intersection. We just decided to book it and broke a good sweat and cruised back to J’s Volvo arriving at around 3:30pm for a 9 hour day.

I have no idea on the roudtrip mileage and vertical. Its probably somewhere in the 12-13 mile day with maybe 4,500′-5,000′ of vertical gain with all of the ups and downs, but who knows. I really don’t keep track all that much anymore. Its not what’s important. What’s important is that J and I got out again together in our favorite range and tackled a ridge we had long wanted to do and did it safely. We still felt like we were the only ones out there all day despite the few parties we encountered closer down in the valley on the Gore Range Trail and Buffalo Mountain Trail. Its special to us that we can still feel that sense of solitude. It may not always be the case. The mountains are indeed getting crowded. But, hopefully the Gore will continue to inspire and challenge those that seek adventure, relative solitude, lofty summits, and gnarly ridges. Many thanks to Stan for pioneering this ridge 2 decades ago. We both agreed it is one of the finest of Gore ridge traverses.