1/22/05 – Gray Wolf Mountain & Mount Spalding – West Slopes & North Slopes

8.8 miles, 3100'


How the months slip by! While Erin and I have been climbing some very enjoyable foothills over the last few weeks, it dawned on me that we hadn't been above timberline in two months – and we hadn't climbed above 13,000' in three months! With the delightfully summer-like week we had been having, we were hoping that Saturday was the day to break our dry spell. Our choice of peaks was an easy one since Gray Wolf Mountain and Mount Spalding have spent a couple years on our winter to-do list.

Despite our strong motivation, we tried to screw up this climb from the start. We missed our alarm early that morning, and we didn't hit the road until 8:30. As soon as we got on I-70, we were mired in ski traffic. The radio said there was an accident at Hidden Valley just short of Idaho Springs. Thinking we could outsmart the traffic, we exited onto Evergreen Parkway and drove up the Squaw Pass Road. Well, we outsmarted ourselves taking this detour. It's a very pretty drive, and it offered some nice views of both Gray Wolf and of Grays and Torreys. But it took us more than an hour to drop back down to Idaho Springs. We had indeed bypassed the accident on I-70, but we were now looking at an 11:00 departure from Guanella Pass. We were still worried whether we'd be able to drive up to the pass at all. I had a good feeling about the warm temperatures melting some of the snow that had prevented Teresa and Kirk from driving to the pass the week before, but calls to the ranger station and to Clear Creek County on Friday yielded no definitive answers. Even though Clear Creek County says they are not maintaining the Guanella Pass Road this winter, somebody had plowed the road all the way to the pass. It was still snowpacked in some spots, but even passenger cars were making it to the top. I wish I could give the person who plowed the road a few bucks for their trouble!

By the time we were ready to leave, it was just before 11:00. By the way, when did they remove the lot at the top of the pass? There's now no parking where the trail sets off for Bierstadt, only the lot that I had previously considered the overflow lot. I don't imagine that's helpful in the summertime! We took a few minutes to lend our shovel to a guy who had gotten his truck stuck in the snow and then we were off. The boardwalk trail was packed well, and we didn't need snowshoes all the way to Scott Gomer Creek, where we had a nice look west to Squaretop Mountain. There, we found some recent snowshoe tracks heading northeast toward Gray Wolf, and we greedily followed them all the way to the small stand of trees at the base of Gray Wolf's south slopes. Here was where our benefactors must have stopped for the day, so we slapped on our snowshoes and started trudging up the hill. The postholing through the trees was tiring but short, and we reached open tundra slopes a little more than an hour after we left the pass. We ditched our snowshoes while we enjoyed the profile-like perspective we had gained on the Sawtooth and later of Mount Bierstadt.

We hiked on mostly bare slopes all the way to a shoulder south of the saddle between Gray Wolf and its unnamed western subpeak. From the saddle we climbed the remaining 800' to Gray Wolf's summit, still on bare slopes. It was only on the summits that we encountered any wind to speak of. Such a treat! I was anxious to begin the 1.2-mile traverse to Spalding, since we did have something of a time constraint. Here's the view of Mount Evans' imposing north face during our descent from Gray Wolf. There were a couple of highlights at the Gray Wolf/Spalding saddle: the view into the Chicago Creek drainage and the prow-like summit that rests more or less at the saddle. Erin and I decided we still had enough time for Spalding, and we started another 800' climb. This time we were on north-facing slopes, so there was actually some snow to deal with, but we made quick work of it, and we reached Spalding's summit at around 3:30. I realized on Saturday night that, much to my chagrin, I failed to take a picture of Evans from Spalding's summit, probably the best view of the day! Some other time...

We were feeling pretty good about how much daylight we had left. We had headlamps with us, we just prefer to hike by day if we can! We descended Spalding's west ridge for a spell before dropping down slopes to angle more directly to our snowshoe cache. Our only goal was to reach the shoes with some light left, but we accomplished that and then some. With the afternoon light finally beginning to wane, we were anticipating nature's nightly fireworks on the west face of the Sawtooth ridge. Once we descended our snowshoe track through the trees, the display was radiant. This shot of the Sawtooth is the best of the sunset moments I tried to capture. We intersected the Bierstadt trail and made the quick ascent back to the pass as sunset gave way to cooler yellows and blues of twilight.

We thought we'd be the last people at the pass, but there was one other truck in the parking lot when we returned. And what's this? They're gearing up? We talked to Steve and his buddy for a few minutes to find out that they were embarking on a night climb of Bierstadt under the nearly full moon. He said that it's better to intentionally make a winter night climb, rather than be unprepared for one if some sort of mishap were to dictate it. Can't argue with that logic, but I still wouldn't have wanted to be up there, even on such a relatively calm and warm night. We wished them luck, and we started the drive back to Denver. What a wonderful January day! Winter ascents like these almost feel like cheating!