Kristine, the dogs, & I did one of our favorite local hikes on Saturday primarily to view the gorgeous Aspen leaves turning their annual brilliant gold. The A10 trail, which we often hike & run, is a mellow 7 mile loop stretching from literally our back door to Arrowhead topping out at about 9,400′ with spectacular viws of the Lake Creek valley & Mt. Jackson. As expected, there were numerous hikers & bikers out on this trail on such a spendid Fall day.
Rainie and the brilliant colors along the A10 loop
Fall colors up to Beaver Creek
Gold hill sides
We’re lucky to have these colors so close to home
The Gore Range from the A10 trail. Specifically, Peak C is at far left and West Partner Peak is at far right
Our good friends, J & Brett, who are climbing Aconcagua with Kristine & myself this December/January, joined us on Sunday for a climb of Snow Peak in the Gore Range. It was another spectacular Fall day to be outside in Colorado. Snow Peak is a rugged looking mountain standing at just over 13,000′ above the Deluge Lake basin. We climbed the non-standard southwest face to southwest ridge and the summit block ended up being several class 3/4 moves, which made it difficult for Kristine & I with the dogs. We were able to help them to the summit just fine but not without a few stressful situations with Rainie & Kona. We realized (I much more than Kristine – she already felt this way) that its just not worth it to bring the dogs up this kind of terrain anymore especially with Rainie approaching 10 yrs old and not being the climber she used to be back in the day. All in all, a cool climb up to Snow Peak’s summit. J & Brett cruised on the class 3/4 ridge proper, which looked like alot of fun.
The dog friendly (or, not so friendly) route we climbed up Snow Peak’s summit block from the southwest
Me & the dogs climbing Snow Peak’s summit block
Kristine & Kona on Snow Peak’s summit (13,024′)
Me & Rainie on Snow Peak’s summit (13,024′)
Team Aconcagua on Snow Peak’s summit on a spectacular Fall day
We then descended the much easier standard north ridge down to Snow Pass. Kristine took the dogs down to Deluge Lake to swim and cool off while the three guys headed north to recon the traverse over to another 13er, Mt. Valhalla. I had no prior information on the traverse so this was definitely an adventure. We were able to skirt a few towers and then able to regain the ridge proper for some fun yet exposed scrambling. The few towers we skirted to either side would be mandatory rappels following the ridge proper, but because we did not have climbing gear with us, we were forced to either side on extremely loose rock and steep scree. We finally scrambled up to the largest tower on the ridge only to be greeted with a 75-100′ vertical cliff on the other side. Again, with no rope and gear, we had to backtrack and just decided to call it and descend down the loose slopes back to Deluge Lake to Kristine & the dogs. There is an extremely loose rock gully immediately below the large tower’s west side that could be climbed to skirt this major obstacle. Perhaps a future endeavor. Nevertheless, some good recon on a traverse we really knew nothing about.
Deluge Lake & Grand Traverse Peak from Snow Pass
Brett on the ridge proper
The route we took up to the base of the largest tower on the traverse from Snow Peak
The largest tower on the Snow – Valhalla traverse where we got turned around
Rainie loving life in Deluge Lake (11,700′)
After relaxing and having a bite to eat at the very cool Deluge Lake cabin, we set off down the trail and arrived back at the cars at around 4pm. A great Fall day with Kristine and our buds and, of course, Rainie & Kona.
Striking gold on the hike out from Deluge Lake
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