Mt. Lindsey, CO
Thursday, June 10 After work, Robin picked me up at my apartment and we headed to the grocery store for some last minute food supplies and then down to Espanola for dinner at JoAnn's. We made our way to Taos and then onto 522 north with the idea that this road would take us really close to the Culebra group and give us better views than the standard 285 route to Alamosa. Unfortunately, the road goes so close to the Culebra group that the view is totally blocked by the foothills. At Ft. Garland we turned east onto 160 and headed over La Veta pass. By this time it was too dark to get good views of our destination peak. We stopped in Walsenburg for a burger at Carl's Jr. From there, it was a quick drive over to Gardner and onto the Huerfano approach road. The instructions in Roach were good as were those on the printout from 14ers.com. Once past the private ranches and into the National Forest, we started looking for places to camp. There was a great meadow with a fire ring just a little ways into the forest and we elected to pull over there and call it a night. There were only 2 more miles of road, and we weren't sure if there would be good camping further along the road. The weather was so nice that we just threw sleeping pads on the ground and put our sleeping bags on top. No tents or anything like that. It was surprisingly comfortable. The stars were unbelieveably bright. We were asleep by midnight. Friday, June 11 I woke up at 5:00am and was impressed at how well I had slept, and with the fact that there weren't spiders in my nose or something. We packed up "camp" and made some scrambled eggs on Robin's whisperlite camp stove. This turned out to be sub-optimal; the stove could only heat the very center of the large frying pan. For future reference, bring the big car-camping stove for this sort of thing. The eggs and a granola bar sufficed for breakfast and we were back on the road driving the remaining two miles to the trailhead. Since we were packing light, it only took a few minutes to get boots on and packs ready for the hike. We were on the trail by 7:10. The trail starts out with about a mile of flat, easy walking near the Huerfano river. Afterwards, the route follows a side trail up a steep gulley and a tributary of the river. Once we got up into this gulley the wind picked up and got rather chilly. The trail also started to go in and out of patchy snow banks. For awhile we found ourselves bushwacking through the steep forest, but we knew the trail followed the stream so we were never far off. Once the gulley reaches treeline, it levels out in a nice alpine bowl that features a great view of Blanca Peak and Ellingwood Point. Without trees, the wind here was really becoming uncomfortable. We stopped between two large boulders and ate a snack and put on more wind gear. From this bowl, the route is obvious. We followed the trail up a grassy slope that leads to a ridge connecting Blanca and Iron Nipple. This ridgeline was exceptionally windy on top and we were getting blown around quite a bit. From the ridge, we could see the remaining route to Lindsey, including the unfathomably steep north face couloir that we would need to ascend. We could also see that it was full of snow. This was unfortunate, since I had elected to leave my ice axe behind and only had a pair of trekking poles for self-belay. The couloir looked so steep that we weren't sure that we were up to the task. We decided to continue to the base of the couloir just to see if it was actually possible, but thoughts of bailing out on the summit were in our heads. I was, however, feeling very strong still and if we had to bail on Lindsey, we would have just gone and done Iron Nipple (13,500') and nearby "Huerfano Peak" (13,9??'). As it turns out, when we got to the couloir, we could see that the rock on the sides was solid and not more than class 3 so we decided to give it a shot. With his ice axe, Robin was able to ascend the snow directly while I had to scramble on the rocks next to the couloir. The scree under the snow and around the edges was incredibly loose and I started several mini rock avalanches. This was probably the most technically challenging traverse I have ever done. Once at the top of the snow climb, there was some question as to where the trail was, and we just ended up making our own way up the class 3 rocks to the summit. As we approached the sharp pointy summit, Robin recalled that there was a false summit on Lindsey and surmised that we must have climbed around it when we went off trail. "If this is a false summit, it is the most convincing one I have ever seen," he said. Two steps later, when his head cleared the top of the rock, he followed it up with, "Aw, fuck!" Indeed, the false summit of Lindsey is totally convincing. At no point during the entire route do you see any of the actual summit or the long ridge behind it. All you ever see is the deceptively sharp false summit. Once on top, there is a 100m or so traverse with very little gain to the actual summit and a good windbreak. The summit of Lindsey offers fantastic views. Blanca, Ellingwood, and Little Bear are clearly visible and very close. The entire Crestone group and all of its constituent 14ers are layed out nicely in the distance. Also visible were the entire Culebra group, Pike's Peak, the Spanish Peaks, the Wheeler group, and a variety of other distant mountains that I didn't recognize. For some reason, as soon as we got to the summit, the wind died off almost completely and the weather became very pleasant. We ended up lounging around at the summit for an hour. Doffing our wind gear, we started the descent. Getting back to the top of the snow couloir was straightforward, but the descent of the couloir was not. Robin had an easy time, sliding down on his rear and arresting himself with his axe. The melt cups were large enough that it was easy for him to stop himself. I, however, had no ice axe and couldn't securely arrest myself with my poles. I found a short section of snow with a large boulder below it that I could test this out, and found myself sliding much more than I was comfortable with. This meant that I had to descent in some other manner. It ended up with me side-hilling down the snow, stepping only in the melt cups and always supporting myself with both poles. This was a reasonably secure way to descend as long as I didn't make any mistakes. It was also extremely hard on the thighs. I made it down to the bottom of the couloir about 20 minutes after Robin and my legs were worked. They were so tired that on my very last step in the snow my leg gave way beneath me and I slid down the remaining three feet of snow and into the scree, where I caused another small rock slide. I suffered no real injuries, but it stood as an example of what could have happened farther up the slope and been a real disaster. I won't be doing that traverse without an ice axe again... It's a shame that the couloir descent was so taxing on my legs, because by the time we made it back down to the grassy ridge, I was too tired to try to climb the Iron Nipple or "Huerfano Peak." I suppose if someone I know wants to go climb Lindsey, I'll just go with them as far as the ridge and then head the other way and climb these two interesting peaks. Anyway, the remainder of the descent was uneventful, if a bit slow on account of my quads. Just as we reached the beginning of the mile of flat trail at the bottom, a German man named Hans, that we had seen ascending the west ridge route to Lindsey just as we were entering the couloir descent, caught up to us. He asked if we could drive him from the trailhead to his RV several miles down the road. We chatted with him on the remainder of the hike and the drive to his RV. Turns out he is an ultra-marathoner who was in the states for a few months just to run several 100-milers, and in between he decided he was going to climb all of the Colorado 14ers. What a maniac. The guy was 64 years old. In a small-world coincidence, he was also good friends with my co-worker and orienteering colleague Blake. I guess the entire world's 100-mile ultramarathon clique is rather small. The hike too us 4.5 hours to get to the summit and 4 hours to descend. Robin and I were both very tired and took turns driving so the other could nap. We had dinner at Carl's Jr. in Walsenburg (the double six dollar burger, with 1 pound of beef, is a great way to refuel after a long hike). We drove home via the same route we came in, and were back in Los Alamos by midnight. Written by Mouser Williams on
2004.06.13
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