Tag Archives: hiking

Long Cut on Long’s Peak

As a long overdue follow-on to last year’s post Long Day on Long’s Peak (anyone else enjoy that play on words?), I present Long’s Peak: Keyhole Route. I’m continuing with a couple themes that I’ve latched onto recently.

Google Earth flyovers – I don’t have a helicopter or a RED Digital Cinema camera so you get this instead. I think it’s cool looking and it adds some context…
Some semblance or story arc. Alright maybe that’s a stretch, but the idea here (seen also in Castle Peak and mostly not seen in any of my skiing stuff) is that a solidly good, 1water1coffee1beer sort of day has a beginning, middle and end during which we travel through a variety of moods, conditions, and settings; almost like a miniature epic…
Playlist format – saves me from feeling quite as bad when I have to cut 98% of the footage but allows for at least some of it to be narrowly focused and less indulgent than I often tend to be because I can include a few extras that would otherwise be gratuitous in an amateur short video.

Alright enough blabbing! Full-screen, volume up, and draw the blinds a bit – best viewed with no glare!

Ouzel Backpacking

It occurred to us the other day, that for some reason we haven’t been backpacking once yet in Colorado! Clearly this was unacceptable, so Kelly picked out a nice warm-up outing so we could get our backpacking legs under us for the season. We booked a spot at Ouzel Lake, which has an upper and lower site. The lower spots were filled so we settled for the upper sites. The upper site is a tad farther from the trail-head, though in either case the whole walk would have been roughly 10 miles round trip. Would have been…

We’ll return to that thought in a bit. Before all of that, we travelled over a gently climbing and well maintained trail that hugs the St. Vrain and then the Ouzel Creek, through sparse pine forests, over several aesthetically appealing timber bridges, past raging cascades and eventually onto a thinly treed ridge offering 360 degrees of views, at least 270 degrees of which are spectacular.

…And as you can see above, the trail was ultimately smothered by an expansive blanket of snow. The well traveled bits and the sun baked parts were plenty supportable and we hardly needed our spikes. In fact, all was well until we lost the trail somewhere after the lower camp area. No worry; we’d just use Backcountry Navigator and the USGS tiles I just downloaded for the region that morning. We navigated back toward the trail and followed it up hill and into the woods through increasingly deep snow and steep terrain until we found ourselves standing atop a snow-bridge under which the Ouzel Creek roared savagely in the spring melt.

After Kelly briefly dipped a foot in the water we agreed to follow the trail as closely as we could without crossing any buried water. We bushwhacked further up a convoluted pine forest that would have made for an absolute playground of midwinter tree-skiing: constant pillowy undulations, and perfectly spaced trees. We navigated off trail through cliffbands and around snowy canyons until we were approximately to the location marked on the map as the upper campsite. After a solid hour of travel, we had covered only one mile. Bushwhacking in shin deep snow is no joke!

A second, third and maybe fourth look at the map revealed that we should have been standing in the creek. Indeed, we were standing on a small ridge running east-west. The creek emerged from a cliffside roughly to our north, and traversed under us to the south. We pondered this paradox briefly before concluding that we were standing on a massive snow drift (25 feet deep at least!?!?!) with running water below.

We realized that the campsites were essentially no more find-able than the trail, so we backtracked down toward the lower site. The lower site was in a similar state of affairs. No gargantuan snow drifts, but all low lying, flat terrain was buried in who knows how much snow. At least it was flat. Somewhat indifferent with defeat, we settled on the first level spot, threw down our packs and made camp.

#ouzel lake #backpacking with @kellyahowie stay tuned – there’s a lot more where this came from! #nofilter #gopro #hero5black #rmnp

A post shared by Brian Sweeney (@briangsweeney) on Jun 4, 2017 at 6:01pm PDT

Backpacking in our backyard at Ouzel Lake #lovewhereyoulive #rmnp #backpacking

A post shared by Kelly Howie (@kellyahowie) on Jun 4, 2017 at 6:50pm PDT

Turns out, the spot we arbitrarily settled on could hardly have been better. Water was close at hand, and the views in either direction were great. We feasted, set up some time lapses, shot photos, strolled about and crawled into bed as soon as it was acceptably late. A nocturnal bathroom break yielded absolutely still air, a brilliant half moon, and surprisingly good visibility – no headlamps needed really, even though it was the middle of the night.

It must have been below freezing for most of the night, because the snow firmed up as soon as the sun set. Around 3 or 4 in the morning my 45 degree back became a little bit inadequate so I pulled on a down jacket snoozed happily until the sun woke us both in the morning.

When we crawled out of bed, our boots, socks and packs were covered in a light frost, which evaporated almost as soon as the sun hit them. The hike out was fast and cool in the morning air. In a couple of hours, backpacking number one was in the books and we were on our way to après-hike Mexican food.

Flash! Thunder!

Similarly spectacular, but an order of magnitude more perilous, hike number two is in the books for Brian and Kelly in Colorado: Season 2. Objective hazards don’t really eat at me all that much. A long climb in no-fall terrain, for example is cut and dry: be careful and don’t fall. Or storm skiing in the backcountry: stay off the steep slopes or anything attached to a steep slope. Risk mitigated. It’s the stuff that you really have no control over – no effective means of mitigation – that freaks me out.

Like lightning.

What to do about lightning… Run for cover I guess? A dubious proposition at best, if above treeline. Or in an an expansive pasture which extends for miles in all directions. I suppose the best you can do is make haste downhill until you find yourself surrounded by old growth where the chance of being directly struck or of being fragged by a Lodgepole Pine whose impedance was a bit too high to transmit 100 million Volts is reasonably remote is really your only recourse.

Yikes!

We checked the living daylights out of the forecast, saw that there was a chance of showers and thunder around 2PM and settled on a turnaround time of noon. We hit the trail at quarter to 9AM, summitted at or before 11AM, took stock of the brooding, dark clouds, and hightailed it out of the alpine. As soon as we hit treeline we were greeted by an unmistakable blue-ish flash and a near-contemporaneous crack. We hit the deck, no doubt far too late to make any difference to mother nature, cinched up our pack suspensions and hauled ass downhill as fast as wet snow and micro-spikes will allow. Our new friend Rolling Thunder followed us downhill for a good mile or so before we began to feel comfortable with the level of risk.

To make a long story short, we were not struck. We did, however, capture some cool pictures of the ominous skies and swirling clouds between running for our lives and wondering whether or not NOAA is to be trusted in the future…

Castles in the Sky

And now for the real story behind Castle Peak: planning, route-finding and all! Perhaps surprisingly given how long it all is, the video does not really show a good hunk of the hike. Nor does it really give much beta, which could be useful down the road. There were also a few cool pictures which didn’t make it into the video – it was just getting too long. So here goes…

We’ll start with planning. It’s right by Aspen – we had the good fortune to stay with Kelly’s cousin in Marble which is close-ish. Maybe it wasn’t close, but it was manageable. We were on the trail some time past 7AM – not bad for us. We’ve been getting our 14er intel from 14ers.com which has to be applauded for it’s exceptional organization and thoroughness, though there were a few gotchas we ran into along the way. For one, the start of the hike was unclear. 14ers.com explains that the trail begins at the end of Castle Creek Road where the road becomes a 4×4 trail and turns into Montezuma Road. Depending on what map you are looking at, this road seems to variously be referred to as Montezuma Road, or Peal Pass Road as well. In fact, the road (whatever you may call it) leads to both Montezuma Mine and Pearl Pass Road, so perhaps none of these monikers is too inappropriate. In any event, it turns into a jeep trail pretty obviously – you’ll know when you’re there.

The guide indicates that you can start at the parking area where the pavement ends, or proceed onward to the end of the 4×4 trail to achieve a shorter hike. The GPX file on 14ers.com had us believing that the jeep road only shaved 2 miles off of either direction. In reality it probably shaves at least 4 miles off of either direction assuming your vehicle can make it the whole way. You most certainly need a 4×4 to make it the entire way. We saw a Subaru outback (with all of it’s passengers and cargo expelled) limping back down the road on a donut as we were on our way up. We heard that a Forester made it the whole way recently. Maybe if your offroad skills are sufficient it can be done, but some decent clearance and 4WD or AWD would seem prudent especially toward the top.

That said, there are numerous places to stop along the way once you determine that you’d like to complete some of the trip under your own power, or that your vehicle is approaching it’s limits. There are numerous dispersed camping sites along the road and plenty of pull-offs for picnicking and camping.

We turned off the jeep road after only about a mile: as we rounded a bend it appeared as though the road was consumed by the creek. In fact, it fords the creek, rounds a sharp bend which we could not see from our angle and proceeds up a decently steep bank. In hind-sight my car would probably have been fine, but we were there for a hike after all, and were content to hike up most of the road. If you drive to the terminus, you are leaving yourself about 4 miles of hiking. If you park where the pavement ends you end up with about 12 miles round trip.

With that in mind, be aware that you are hiking for a solid 8 miles on a road. We usually prefer not to hike on roads but in this case the unimproved nature of the road coupled with the extraordinary beauty of the valley completely overrode any disdain for hiking on roads we may have had.

Stark Beauty: Easily one of the most scenic roads I’ve ever traveled.

From the profile you can see that the first 4 miles is pretty straight forward. The climb follows the road, which presumably was graded for antique trucks to ride up and down, and as such you can maintain an easy pace and make good time.

Once the road ends, the adventure really begins. The path meanders through a miserable shambles of talus and scree with the odd cairn placed here and there. It looks to me as though avalanche activity, runnels and rock slides probably rearrange the surface of the bowl between Castle and Conundrum on a yearly basis. The GPX from 14ers.com while generally accurate, does not necessarily follow the past path through the giant jumble below the summit. I imagine at some point in time, this was fine, but it did not work out well for us. You can see above that we deviated substantially in a few places. In truth, you probably just need to perform your own route-finding based on the conditions when you get there. The map above shows our route vs the 14er.com GPX which deviates slightly in a few places. This is where you may wish to wing it, but be certain to rejoin the beaten path at the top of the ridge.

Eventually, the scree gives way to a fairly beaten knife-edge path which you follow until the summit. At this point it is much more follow-able, there are a few places which made me think twice before proceeding (seen below).

Which way did the trail go? #14er #hiking #type2fun #colorado

A video posted by Brian Sweeney (@briangsweeney) on Sep 6, 2016 at 9:50pm PDT

…which provides me with a convenient segue to another of the gotchas: 14ers.com gives this hike a rating of Class 2 and Exposure 3. These ratings seem to overlap a bit and rather than offer my own interpretation I’ll quote:

Class 2

More difficult hiking that may be off-trail. You may also have to put your hands down occasionally to keep your balance. May include easy snow climbs or hiking on talus/scree.

Class 3 (for comparison)

Scrambling or un-roped climbing. You must use your hands most of the time to hold the terrain or find your route. This may be caused by a combination of steepness and extreme terrain (large rocks or steep snow). Some Class 3 routes are better done with rope.

Exposure 3

Moderate exposure along the immediate route. It should be avoidable with some slow hiking or scrambling.

Exposure 4 (for comparison)

More serious exposure that could result in serious injury or death if you fell. Moving past the area will require some scrambling or short technical moves.

The final stretch is a knife edge. While not terribly perilous, it did seem to me that there were a handful of places where a fall would easily ruin your day (and probably week). Some fellow hikers concurred that while mostly accurate, one of the two ratings seemed a bit on the low side for certain isolated sections. I suspect the author did not see fit to bump up the overall rating just for a couple isolated features. Regardless, it’s worth noting that these things exist for those with low appetite for heights and exposure. In the spirit of full disclosure, this only my second 14er so maybe I’m just not used to the mountains in these parts…

Kelly shortly before gaining the ridge.

Foreground: screen knightmare; background: the knife-edge.

Once you get onto the ridge, the real fun begins! The scrambling and route finding were just challenging enough to be rewarding while not being overly stressful. Coupled with the outrageously good views from the top, I took a real sense of satisfaction in summitting this rock pile.

The down climb along the ridge was easier and faster than the climb – probably in part because I had figured it out by then. The descent down the talus slope was about as crappy as the ascent – go figure. Once you get back to the jeep road it’s all cruise control and views!