1/11/04 – Marble Mountain – Northeast Ridge

10.6 miles, 4500'


After missing a planned trip to Windy Peak by sleeping in on the first of the year, Erin and I were itching to get out into the hills for the first time in 2004. Though we had an opportunity for a winter climb of Mount Elbert, we were 'resolved' to climbing a peak that we hadn't summitted before. We tossed around a few ideas before settling on Greenhorn Mountain, but after seeing how nice this weekend would be, we realized that we'd be kicking ourselves for not trying a 13er. Marble Mountain, across the Wet Mountain Valley from Greenhorn, popped into our heads immediately. We knew the route is easy and safe, thanks to a pioneering trip report from Kirk Mallory last year. Combine that with assuredly amazing views of the Crestones, and we were decided.

We left Broomfield at 3:00 a.m., and at 7:30 we started hiking the South Colony Road, starting just shy of the 2WD parking lot that you may be familiar with from hiking the Crestone group. The morning had been most impressive, and we took in the nice views all around, including of Horn Peak and Pikes Peak. We made decent time, following two sets of snowshoe tracks up the road, their compressed snow affording easy progress. We reached the signed junction with the Rainbow Trail, donned our snowshoes, and turned left. The trail is on steep, slanted ground, which I thought was a bit uncomfortable in snowshoes. Soon, we tired of sidehilling and abandoned the Rainbow Trail. Knowing that we were already hiking on slopes of our target, Marble Mountain's Northeast Ridge, we bushwhacked straight up the slope to the ridge's wooded crest.

Whether you know it or not, if you've been up the South Colony Road, you're familiar with Marble Mountain because its steep north-facing slopes form the southern boundary of the South Colony Creek drainage all the way until the lakes. Marble is the perfect companion to its massive neighbors to the north, Humboldt Peak and Colony Baldy – guarding the craggy range core to their west, all three are gargantuan lumps with long ridges reaching for the Wet Mountain Valley. Marble Mountain is also notable for its Minturn formation limestone, which allows for no less than 11 caves on its eastern flank. Lloyd Paris, an experienced spelunker, reports that Marble Cave, the best-known, longest, and most dangerous cave in the mountain, features at least 3500' of passageways and is probably one of the deepest caves in the United States, with numerous unexplored areas. For more information on Marble Mountain's caves, please visit this page.

Back to the hike, though! Erin and I snowshoed up the ridge 700' until we reached a flat spot with an elevation of 10,725' noted on the Crestone Peak quad. We walked a little too far to the south, where our views opened slightly between the trees. Discouragingly, Marble Mountain appeared no closer than it did when we left the trailhead, though we did notice that we would have a good strip of talus to climb on the ridge near the summit. Our view also confused us, because our ridge was no longer in sight. The quad noted a drop of around 60' though, so that explained why the ridge dropped out of sight. After a quick descent, we knew we were still on track. The bushwhacking on Marble's northeast ridge is moderate at best, with very little downfall to deal with, making the snowshoe mercifully easier. For we were huffing! We hadn't been hiking at high altitude in weeks, and we could feel the difference. Every now and then a view would break to our right, and we could see Broken Hand Peak or catch a glimpse of the Crestones. The intermittent views were mesmorizing, and they drew us on.

The hours continued to slip by while we worked our way along the lengthy ridge. My thoughts often went to James, Dwight, and Kurt, and their adventure here two months earlier. Guys, I'm amazed that you three postholed the entire way to treeline, only to turn back and punch new postholes all the way back down. If it makes you feel any better, your trek out there meant that Erin and I wouldn't make the same mistake of not bringing snowshoes (the view of Marble from the trailhead tempted us to leave them behind, but we never would have summitted without them).

After much labor but with no advance notice, we were suddenly at treeline. Views to our south featured the Spanish Peaks, Mount Maestas, and Silver Mountain. Greenhorn Mountain and the Wet Mountains made up our view east, and to the north, Humboldt Peak utterly dominated. We wended our way through wind-twisted krummholz and wind-whipped, undulating snow, heading deliberately for a swatch of talus that would bring us to our final ascent. We dropped our snowshoes, and started climbing. After reattaining the Northeast Ridge at around 12,200', we were treated to one of those "Oh my God!" moments. The Crestones were before us in all their glory, towering over the snow-covered South Colony Lakes basin.

While making certain that the Crestones didn't leave our sight for the rest of the ascent, we felt downright fleetfooted ascending talus rather than snow, and we cranked out the remaining 1000' in about 40 minutes. Six hours (!) after we set out, we were finally at Marble's summit. Views now completely encompassed us. A real treat was the fine view into the Sand Creek Valley and of the last peaks we had climbed in the Sangres, Tijeras Peak and Milwaukee Peak. Milwaukee's exposed ramp now looked positvely suicidal, as did the rest of its wicked east face. We also had a great perspective of Music Mountain's east ridge, which we plan to ascend next summer on a day trip. Greenhorn Mountain looked lovely, and it was fascinating to look across the Wet Mountain Valley, because it held snow only north of the Promontory Divide. Of equal spectacle was the weather. As it had been all day, the conditions on the summit were wonderful – 30 degrees, no trace of wind, and barely a cloud in the sky. The only sign of a register was some shattered glass, so we left behind a new one (our first!). Because we had arrived at such a late hour, we stayed on the summit for only around twenty minutes. Had we known our descent would be so swift, we might have stayed longer, but at this point we were already expecting to return to our car after dark.

We hiked down the talus, just barely staying ahead of Marble's rapidly advancing shadow. We reached the snow fields and got down for some glissading. We had left our axes at the trailhead, so we kept it slow and short, but it was still a sweet 200' that we kept off our heels. We retrieved our snowshoes, and then we headed back through the krummholz. As soon as we reentered the woods, we were postholing past our knees, so it was time again for snowshoes. As I was putting them on, I, in my inexperience, found myself wishing that we didn't need the cumbersome things. I didn't know that I was about to have more fun with snowshoes than I ever had.

Given the right snow conditions, you can FLY with those things on! The snow was offering the perfect ratio of cushion and resistance, and with our energy somehow renewed, we plowed down the mountain at an exuberant clip, while occasionally snacking on Erin's excellent baked chicken. We followed our tracks without a care in the world, and before we knew it, we had descended 3000' from Marble's summit in about 90 minutes and were back at the junction of South Colony Road and the Rainbow Trail in another 30.

We spent 45 minutes slowly making our way down the road, which didn't have as fine snow as we had been relishing. But new vistas were spreading before us in the waning afternoon. The Pikes Massif was entirely pink, and we watched it change to deeper and deeper tones as we descended. Positively gorgeous! I can't believe we only got off one shot of Pikes before we ran out of film, but with the poor light, the shot didn't take anyway. We returned to the car at a quarter of five, making our descent time less than half of our ascent time.

As we began the drive to Westcliffe, we enjoyed the sunset and silhouettes of some mountains far to the northwest. Did you know you can see Mount Lincoln, Mount Silverheels, and Bald Mountain from the Wet Mountain Valley? I didn't anyway, but their distinctive profiles left these mountains' identities in no doubt. We got home at around 9:00, and I quickly switched on my tape so I could watch the Packers playoff game. Though it's always nice to skip through all the commercials in the game, I still had to stay up past midnight only to watch them lose in overtime to the Eagles, argh!! And THAT'S why I'm not staying home for football anymore! A day in the mountains is better than any day in front of the TV.