The west ridge of the high centennial 13er Pacific Peak has long been on the to-do list. While we’ve all been to Pacific’s summit before, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grace its flanks again, and again, and again via new and different routes. Pacific, in fact, has a variety of routes from steep couloirs to long ridges. Reid & I had been trying to plan this climb one weekend this past winter but every time we’d make a plan for a Saturday or Sunday morning the wind and weather forecast seemed to shut us down because of the notorious high winds and harsher weather of the Tenmile Range. The west ridge seemed like a fun, albeit short, scramble that would make for an even better snow route in winter-like conditions. Kristine & I were leaving for our very atypical (for us) beach vacay on the island of Caye Caulker off the coast of Belize early Sunday morning and I was to meet her in Denver Saturday evening as she would just be getting in from a teacher conference in Philadelphia all week. The weather looked decent Saturday morning on Pacific with some sun and a front moving in after noon. So, we made a plan and our good friend Jesse Hill rode up with Reid from Denver to join us on the climb as well. The morning was pretty nice for climbing and fairly warm. We left the very familiar Mayflower Gulch trailhead around 8:30am and made our way up the southern slopes of Mayflower Hill. I thought it would be fun to make a loop out of the day and tag Mayflower Hill’s summit first. Mayflower Hill’s east ridge then essentially becomes Pacific’s west ridge after a bit of elevation loss and some mellower terrain. We’d then descend to the Pacific/Atlantic saddle off Pacific’s summit, down into the Pacific Creek drainage, and back to Mayflower Gulch. The snowshoe up to Mayflower Hill’s summit was some nice vertical through very mellow glades. These southern slopes of Mayflower Hill would make for very fun low-angled winter or spring glade skiing.

Reid (left) & Jesse at the Mayflower Gulch trailhead. Pacific Peak is barely visible over Jesse’s head

Jesse ascending Mayflower Hill with the 13er Jacques Peak behind

On Mayflower Hill’s ridge with the summit just ahead

After about an hour, we stood on the 12er Mayflower Hill’s summit looking over Mayflower Hill’s very steep north face and onto Pacific’s west ridge.

Mayflower Hill summit (12,416′)

Gores to the north from Mayflower Hill’s summit

Pacific’s west ridge lies ahead

The descent down Mayflower Hill’s east ridge was some fun snowshoeing (bordering on extreme snowshoeing) and the positions encountered on the corniced ridge were fantastic.

Reid (left) & Jesse descending Mayflower Hill’s east ridge with Pacific’s west ridge looming ahead

Mayflower Hill’s steep north face

Extreme snowshoeing

Mayflower Hill’s interesting east ridge

Jesse descending the corniced east ridge of Mayflower Hill

It was then an easy snowshoe up relatively mellow terrain to the base of Pacific’s west ridge. The weather was still pretty superb.

Reid & I approaching the west ridge

Once at the base of the west ridge we stashed our snowhsoes on our packs, put our helmets on, and grabbed our ice axes. No crampons yet as the snow was fairly soft for kicking steps.

Base of the west ridge

We made our way up the initial steep slopes to the base of the largest tower on the ridge proper.

Beginning the climb up the west ridge

The typical route up the class 3 west ridge bypasses this tower on its right (south) side, but Reid had read of a class 4 variation up the tower proper which led to some easier 5th class terrain. When I can, I always love taking the ridge proper and climbing these towers. I feel its good practice and this tower would definitely not disappoint especially in my Koflach mountaineering boots. Reid & Jesse followed me a bit to the left (north) to reach the base of the tower proper and discovered a great looking class 4 dihedral which led to a small ledge after about 30 ft. Climbing up the dihedral was tons of fun and I waited for Reid at the ledge trying to point out holds for him while he climbed up below me.

Me looking down at Reid climbing the class 4 dihedral. Photo by Jesse

Reid starting up the class 4 dihedral with Jesse below

Reid

Above me was then a very nice looking crack (hand-size) that went for another 30 ft or so and then looked like I could exit right onto a small ledge. This hand crack was mostly class 4. However, I would bet a few moves towards the top were low 5th class. The climbing in mountaineering boots definitely made things a bit spicy as well.

Reid & Jesse making their way up the low 5th class hand crack above the class 4 dihedral

Me up top and Reid behind me in the hand crack. Photo by Jesse

Reid (front) and Jesse

A better profile of the 4th class/low 5th class hand crack from above

The boys climbing up the hand crack

Reid in the low 5th class section of hand crack as seen from the small ledge

Jesse cruising

Sure enough, we were able to exit the hand crack to the right and scramble our way up much looser rock to the ridge proper. It was then a delicate scramble for 10 ft across pretty loose rock with significant exposure to both sides. I chose to attack the ridge proper head-on and after some 5th class moves, topped out on the tower. We noticed a somewhat easier and likely safer route to the ridge’s south side, which Reid and Jesse followed up to me.

Me on some (unnecessary) 5th class moves to top out on the large tower. Easier terrain leads around to the right to reach the high point of the tower. Photo by Jesse

Reid coming around to the top of the tower

Our route shown in red up the large tower. The initial class 4 dihedral is denoted by the dotted red line as it cannot be seen from this vantage point. The easier and safer final section to reach the top of the tower is shown in green. Photo taken on our descent in the Pacific Creek drainage

There were still a few 5-10 ft tall gendarmes ahead, but as they didn’t look stable at all to climb (we could see air underneath them), we exited off the top of the tower to the right (south) side down a class 3/4 ramp.

The exit ramp off the large tower to the south side with the seemingly unstable gendarmes to the right of the boys in this picture

Climbing back up to the ridge proper

With the difficulties behind, the ridge continued to present a few class 3 rock sections of scrambling interspersed with fun snow ridges and steeper snow slopes. It was really fun and exciting ridge climbing all the way up to the false summit. We never felt the need to put the crampons on, though in icy or firmer snow conditions we definitely would have.

Climbing the west ridge with the top of the large tower below to the left

Jesse with Mayflower Hill down below behind him

Reid

There were several fun and interesting points along the ridge we needed to climb up and over

Mellow snow ridges

And steeper snow slopes

The weather was still holding for us

On the false summit looking at the true summit

The boys coming up the final section of the west ridge

Once we reached the false summit we descended to the notch between the false and true summits and peered down the steep north couloir.

Looking down Pacific’s north couloir to Crystal Peak

This couloir is next on my to-do list of routes up Pacific Peak. We then topped out on Pacific Peak’s true summit around 12:15pm and enjoyed an absolutely windless summit accompanied by fairly warm temperatures. It was a nice summit to say the least.

Pacific Peak summit (13,950′) after climbing the west ridge

As I needed to get back home to play with the dogs before packing and driving to Denver, we didn’t dally on top and boogied on down Pacific’s south ridge to the saddle between Pacific Peak and Atlantic Peak.

Reid (front) & Jesse descending Pacific’s mellow south ridge

We made our way down Atlantic Peak’s northwest face via a faint scree trail interspersed with slick snow. We then found a snow gully in which we plunge-stepped our way down to reach the Pacific Creek drainage where we once again donned our snowshoes to make the slog out to Mayflower Gulch.

Profile of Pacific’s west ridge from Atlantic Peak’s northwest face

Pacific’s west ridge on the snowshoe out with the large tower visible at lower left

The descent went fairly fast and I was back home in Edwards by 3:30pm with plenty of time to pack up and play with the dogs down by the river before heading off to Denver. This climb up the west ridge ended up being one of my favorite ridge climbs in the Tenmile Range thus far and I’d highly recommend it. It can be kept at class 3 and mellower snow slopes by going around the large tower or can be spiced up a bit by taking the large tower head-on. I’m glad we were able to fit this nice little ridge climb in on this Saturday morning, especially before heading off to the tropics of Belize with Kristine, which was fantastic in itself. Pictures and stories of our island vacation to come soon.

Having always heard of this somewhat hidden 13er near Breckenridge called Mt. Guyot, I wanted to pay it a visit and thought it would make a fairly nice winter-ish climb. Guyot lies behind (to the east of) the larger and much more massive Bald Mountain (13,684′), which obscures Guyot from Breckenridge and the Tenmile Range peaks. Rainier & I had climbed Bald Mountain via its long north ridge with friends back in February of 2008.

A younger Rainier and a younger me on Bald Mountain’s summit (13,684′) with Mt. Guyot behind

Mike Santoro & Reid Jennings joined Rainier, Kona, & I this past weekend for an attempt on Guyot’s northwest ridge. On our ascent that day, we walked the French Creek Road for a mile and a half until we veered southeast into the Little French Creek drainage to make our way up to the northwest ridge. While Mike was still skinning up to the northwest ridge in the trees from the Little French Creek Drainage, Reid, the dogs, & I were at a small notch on the northwest ridge proper right at treeline when a crew of local skiers set off what turned out to be a sizable avalanche on the northeast facing slopes. We were on the ridge above the avalanche and Mike was a few hundred yards a way in the trees, so we were all safe. Fortunately, the avalanche did not occur directly below or at the skier’s location. Instead a crack propagated 20 yards to his right and the slab avalanche ensued and ran about 500′ down to the drainage. All of the skiers were ok and no one was caught in the avalanche. Reid, the dogs, & I continued up the northwest ridge for 20 minutes or so, but due to extremely low visibility (though the winds were very low and temperatures fairly warm) we turned around on the northwest ridge at about 12,200′.

Fast forward just two days and I find myself crashing Kristine and Lauren’s peak-bagging girl party. I even convinced them to head back to Guyot, which was very nice of them to do. The weather forecast looked much clearer though much colder and more windy (forecast called for 30+mph winds with a wind chill temp of around -8 degrees at 12,400′). We made our way to the French Creek Trailhead and started hiking down the road at about 9:15am. Guyot was in the clouds which was a little concerning and it was pretty darn cold out. However, the sun came out a bit and after we overshot the turn off into the Little French Creek drainage (my fault), we made our way up through the drainage and at the base of the avalanche slide path that occurred 2 days before.

Skier-triggered avalanche from 2 days before on the northeast facing slopes of Guyot’s northwest ridge

Its always good to check out these avalanche paths to gain some perspective on avalanches and how they are able to propagate so far even on 30 degree slopes. We then made our way up to the northwest ridge proper and to treeline where the wind picked up substantially.

Kristine at treeline on the northwest ridge with the Tenmile Range behind in the distance

Rainie on the northwest ridge

Kristine & Lauren on the lower portion of Guyot’s northwest ridge

We made it up to the small cairn where Reid, the dogs, and I had turned around 2 days prior and then climbed the steepening ridge up to a large plateau at 12,400′. The wind was really kicking on this plateau.

Lauren coming up to the 12,400′ plateau on Guyot’s northwest ridge

We left our snowshoes here anchored down by rocks and made our way to the  upper northwest ridge for the final 1,000′ climb to the summit ridge.

The remaining 1,000′ up Guyot’s northwest ridge

It was pretty tough going with the wind and cold on tough terrain (loose slabby rocks covered by about a foot of powder snow in most places). Rainier is such a trooper especially for being almost 11 years old. She is a determined lady and just keeps plugging away right behind me the entire way.

Kristine on the upper northwest ridge

Once we hit the summit ridge itself, the wind and cold were really intense. Much more intense than anything I remember as of recent. Nevertheless, we trenched away on the summit ridge and made the summit. It was extremely cold and windy on the summit and we took a few pics and only stayed for 10 minutes or so.

Breckenridge & the Tenmile Range from Guyot’s summit

Rainie & I on Mt. Guyot’s summit (13,370′). It was extremely cold and windy on the summit ridge – well below zero with wind chill

Mt. Guyot USGS summit marker

Kristine & Kona on Guyot’s summit

Kristine & I on Guyot’s summit – good Antarctica training

Lauren had turned around at about 12,800′ and made a good decision. She just wasn’t feeling it especially on the terrain and in such brutal wind and cold. Kristine, the dogs, and I quickly descended back to the 12,400′ plateau.

Looking back down Guyot’s northwest ridge and French Gulch from where we came

Kristine and the dogs descending the summit ridge with the wind ripping the snowy ridge to the south (left in picture)

I usually like looking at snowy plumes as a result of strong winds from a distance, but being in the middle of them is a different story

We soon enough met up with Lauren at the plateau and had a snack in the relative warmth of the lower altitude.

Kristine & Kona back in the warmth of the 12,400′ plateau with Bald Mountain behind (13,684′)

Kristine & Lauren

We then all made our way back down our ascent route and reached my truck at around 2:45pm for a 7.5 mile roundtrip day in about 5 1/2 hours with 3,100′ of elevation gain. It was a very fun outing and we all enjoyed being out in the elements. Kona may beg to differ there 🙂

Mt. Guyot from the north on the French Creek Road during our hike out with the northwest ridge in profile. The plumes of snow can be seen on the summit ridge as a result of the strong winds

This past weekend was absolutely gorgeous late fall weather and so Kristine, Kona, & I joined up with a great crew of familiar and new faces from 14ers.com, aka my version of “facebook”, for a fun day up above Deluge Lake on 13ers Palomino Point & Mt. Valhalla in my favorite range in Colorado, the Gore Range. We had to leave Rainier with our friends Sarah & Keith in Edwards due to her having a pretty big operation last Wednesday to remove a soft cell sarcoma lump on her back that could potentially be dangerous. She is totally fine now and is the toughest cookie I know albeit a nice 8″ long stapled incision on her back. I doubt she even knows its there with all her energy to play tennis ball. I just received notice today from our great vet that the sarcoma is only a Grade 1 sarcoma, the lowest grade there is in terms of cancer’s ability to spread, and that the tumor was completely excised. About as good of news as we could expect. Its definitely a relief that’s it not any worse. She’ll be back with us in the mountains in no time.

Palomino Point (13,060′) at left & Mt. Valhalla (13,180′) at right on the approach

Anyway, we met the crew around 7:30am on Sunday morning at the Deluge Lake trailhead for the long and steep 4.5 mile with 3,000′ of vertical gain approach up to Deluge Lake. We had been up into the Deluge Lake Basin a few times to climb the famous Gore scrambling traverse called The Grand Traverse as well as to climb Snow Peak, but the peak we had left surrounding this basin was the mighty Mt. Valhalla. It was a great crew – many I knew and hadn’t seen in awhile, including Ryan Marsters & Jason Blyth, and some I hadn’t met yet and so enjoyed getting to know, including Dillon Sarnelli. Good friend Mike Santoro decided to drive the half mile from his East Vail home to join us for the day. Recently acquired Vail local Matt Grabina organized the crew and let the Chalks know about the hike and it was good to get out again with Matt. It was awesome for Kristine & myself to meet Jason’s wife, Becky, as well. After a few hours of mostly dry trail hiking in our trail runners and gaiters we all arrived at the frozen Deluge Lake (11,700′) and the trail breaking in snow ensued up to the steeper and drier southern slopes of the Palomino Point – Mt. Valhalla ridge.

Kona & I breaking some trail around Deluge Lake. Photo courtesy of Dillon

Trail breaking above Deluge Lake

Kristine & Kona on a beauty of a day

Deluge Lake basin

It was a quick and mostly dry climb up to the ridge on steep, grassy slopes and we all then veered east towards the unranked Palomino Point for a fun class 3/4 scramble up to its summit.

Kona & I on the steep, grassy slopes. Photo courtesy of Jason

Palomino Point (left) and Mt. Valhalla (right)

Kristine traversing the ridge to Palomino Point with Grand Traverse Peak behind

Traversing snow slopes over to Palomino Point. Photo courtesy of Jason

Scrambling up to Palomino Point

Kona & I on the summit of Palomino Point with Mt. Valhalla behind. Photo courtesy of Jason

One of the reasons I really wanted to get up on Palomino Point & Mt. Valhalla was to scope out and take pictures of the two awesome looking yet rarely known east ridges of these peaks. The very lengthy east ridge of Palomino Point is known as “Asgard Ridge” with the first major tower called “Point Odin”. Its a pretty serious-looking ridge that would likely entail some roped pitches and rappels. Now, if you like Norse mythology as I do, you’ll love all of these names. The shorter, more southern east ridge of Mt. Valhalla is not as gnarly looking but has a few mid-5th class towers with the names “Loki”, “Thor”, & “Freya”. I just love ridges like these with not much information on them at all, though I know they have been climbed. I think such ridges are about as close to true adventure as we can get in our neck of the woods, especially on ridge runs. The ridge and tower names make it extra-intriguing. I really look forward to hopefully putting these ridges and towers on my radar in the future.

Asgard Ridge down to the east from Palomino Point’s summit

The east ridge of Mt. Valhalla (Thor Tower & Freya on the lower left portion of the ridge) and mighty Rain Peak behind

Palomino’s summit can only accommodate a few folks, so Kristine, Kona, Mike, myself, and the Blythes returned back down to the saddle with Mt. Valhalla. The ridge up to Valhalla looked a bit intimidating for Kona, so Kristine decided to go down with her. Mike decided to descend as well since he wasn’t feeling all that great and his feet were soaked.

The crew spread out on Palomino Point…Dillon is on the summit

The crew then descended down to the saddle and Jason & Becky led the way up Valhalla’s fun class 3 northwest ridge.

Jason, Becky, & Sam heading up Valhalla’s northwest ridge

The climb up to Valhalla was lots of fun with some snowy scrambling yet none of us broke out the axes as there was enough rock exposed for some good holds. I believe we all summited Valhalla around 12:30pm to some wonderful blue skies and sunshine though a bit of a stiff wind.

Gore enthusiast Ryan on the summit of Mt. Valhalla (13,180′), his 200th Colorado 13er

The views were amazing, as is typical for the Gores, and this was many folks’ first Gore peak, which made this outing extra special. I think some of the climbers may have gotten hooked to the Gores.

From the summit of Mt. Valhalla looking southeast

Looking down into Valhalla’s east basin with Asgard Ridge on the left and Valhalla’s east ridge on the right

Snow Peak (13,024′) to the south from the Mt. Valhalla summit

Left to right: Becky, Jason, me, Ryan, Sam on the summit of Mt. Valhalla (13,180′)

Left to right: Dillon, Becky, & Jason on the summit of Mt. Valhalla (13,180′). Photo courtesy of Dillon

Group summit shot on Mt. Valhalla (13,180′). Photo courtesy of Dillon

After many pics, a bite to eat, and talk of many future Gore adventures we all descended back to the saddle and then made a diagonal traverse across several snowfields to the lower grass slopes.

The Grand Traverse as seen from the east on the slopes of Mt. Valhalla

The crew heading down Mt. Valhalla’s northwest ridge

Sorry, more pics of Asgard Ridge 🙂

Point Odin on Asgard Ridge

Becky and crew heading down the snowfields below Palomino Point. Photo courtesy of Jason

We met up with Kristine & Kona back in the basin above Deluge Lake and then all descended back to the trailhead by 4:15pm for about an 8.5 hour day.

Sam & Matt in the Deluge Lake basin below Palomino Point & Mt. Valhalla on the way out

The long way home – Kristine & Kona heading down from Deluge Lake in the afternoon sun

Lastly, we picked up Rainier and headed home just in time to catch the 4th quarter of the Broncos beating up the Redskins. Good stuff. Another great day out in the Gores with great folks. There really is no other place I’d rather be.

The 2nd highest peak in the world is K2 in the Karakorum Range of Pakistan and is otherwise known as the “Mountaineer’s Mountain” or the “Savage Mountain”. Well, we have our own “Savage Mountain” here in Colorado called Savage Peak and it lies in the Holy Cross Wilderness about a 45 minute drive from our house. While not 28,000′ and not having a summit fatality rate of 25%, i.e. one in four climbers who successfully summit die on the mountain, our little local Savage Peak is a beautiful 13er in a terrific setting and has a much much higher summit fatality rate – maybe closer to 100% 🙂 Savage Peak has a very aesthetic route on its north face called the “Savage Couloir”. I was wanting to scope this couloir out and maybe climb it in order to get some good recon for a spring climb/ski. J & Mike joined Kristine & myself for the adventure this past Saturday. The mountains had just received a good fresh coat of white about 24 hours earlier and we knew there would be snow, but boy did we underestimate just how much, especially since the slopes we would be climbing are north-facing. Not making the smart decision, we decided to leave the snowshoes in my truck. That turned out to be a mistake, but cest la vie, it yielded just a better workout for the day. It was a frigid 10 degrees at the Missouri Lakes trailhead even though it was 9am and we set off breaking trail in anywhere between 6-12″ of snow on the Missouri Lakes trail around 9:30am. The skies were brilliant blue and the day promised to be sunny and dry. After 2.5 miles or so we left the semi-comfort of the Missouri Lakes trail and veered southwest across the basin and broke trail through some waist deep snow through the trees to treeline below Savage’s east ridge. It was some tough trail breaking and we couldn’t believe how much snow there was. We still had a ways to even get to the base of the Savage Couloir, but considering the north-facing slopes we had just broken trail through, we knew the snow was going to be deep in the deeply inset couloir. Because of the deeply loaded snow within the couloir, my concern for potential avalanches in the couloir heightened considerably. I honestly was not expecting so much snow. I had climbed couloirs in fall before before the snow got to be too much a of a danger, but this October has seen a lot of snow – more than I remember in recent years. I voiced my concern for avalanche potential and we then decided to take the east ridge and save the couloir for spring. It was still a grueling trail break up to the east ridge proper, but no doubt very fun all the same.

Kristine & Mike climbing in deep snow up to the east ridge with the frozen Missouri Lakes behind

We still saw deep post-holing until we got on the east ridge proper and were able to stay on some rocks as well and only break trail through a few inches of fresh snow.

Finally on the east ridge, the post-holing in deep snow didn’t let up

Savage Peak comes into view

Kristine & Mike on the east ridge

The ridge was spectacular and made for some great views of the Holy Cross Wilderness and the awesome Savage Couloir.

The remaining route up the east ridge with the Savage Couloir visible

Kristine on a fine fall day

J climbing the east ridge

Kristine & Mike on the east ridge

J and the final bit to Savage’s summit

J almost to Savage’s summit with Kristine & Mike following closely behind

Mike loving being high on a 13er in winter-like conditions

As we got higher on the ridge, the wind increased and made for some chilly climbing. We all topped out on Savage Peak’s summit around 2pm and were greeted with a very stiff and cold west wind. We took a few pics and did not stay very long – my fingers about froze trying to handle the camera. All in the name of good training for Antarctica, I guess.

Northern Sawatch from Savage Peak’s summit

Pyramid Peak & the Maroon Bells to the southwest from Savage Peak’s summit

The four of us on the Savage Peak summit (13,139′)

Kristine & I on Savage’s cold summit

The boys on Savage’s summit

As soon as we were a few hundred feet down the east ridge, the wind subsided and it turned out to be a great afternoon to be up high on a mountain.

Descending the east ridge

A gorgeous afternoon

Mike & Savage Peak

Another hour of retracing our post-hole steps brought us back down to the Missouri Lakes trail and another hour brought us back to my truck shortly before 4:30pm. While its no K2, Savage was a really fun winter-like climb in the heart of the Northern Sawatch literally only 15 miles southeast of our house as the crow flies. I think we all look forward to going back in May to climb/ski the awesome Savage Couloir.