3/27/04 – Peak 10 – East Ridge

7.3 miles, 3370'


John Kirk, Erin Burr, and I met up at 4:00 a.m., Saturday for the drive out to Breckenridge. The plan was to climb Crystal Peak by way of Peak 10, but the forecasts weren't looking encouraging. Along the way, we encountered snow on the east side of the Divide and icy roads on the west. Erin took the drive at a slow pace, and we reached the Spruce Creek Trailhead at about ten minutes 'til 6:00. Conditions were looking quite nice at the trailhead, but this wouldn't last much longer. As we were getting ready, Ken Nolan arrived, right on time. We had been meaning to hike with Ken for some time. The only other occasion we were in the hills together was when we met him near Grizzly Peak last April. Ken hurt his shoulder on Grays Peak a few weeks ago. Lesser folks would use this as an excuse to take it easy, but not Ken. Since the injury, he had already climbed Mount Elbert and spent a day on the Kenosha Mountains' crest. Ken expressed interest in joining us for Crystal at Teresa's slideshow get-together on Tuesday, so we worked out the details later in the week.

We all started hiking up the well-packed Spruce Creek Road at 6:10. After a mile, we intersected the Wheeler Road, which was also heavily traveled. Ken had never hiked up Crystal Creek and past Crystal Lakes, so we had decided to attempt to climb to the Crystal-Peak 10 saddle. As we neared Francie's Cabin, we reached a point where the road was drifted over and no one had ventured further. Not wishing to start postholing, we followed tracks to the cabin, which is gorgeous and quite new looking. Inside, bleary-eyed people were enjoying morning coffee and tending the fire. Our path continued beyond the cabin, so we followed. As we gained a view into the Crystal Creek valley, we could see the headwall between the Upper and Lower Crystal Lakes along with the road – the standard summer route. The road crossed a number of shallow gullies, clearly covering the path. Meanwhile, we didn't find the gullies that split the headwall to be very appealing. Since we were already on its slopes, we changed our minds and reverted to the original plan: Peak 10's east ridge.

For a lot of the ascent to the ridge crest, Ken and Erin, despite her cold, were up front, and John and I were behind. I was having a miserable time with my gear, most especially my Platypus, which was freezing up worse than it had for me all winter. Erin was enjoying a lesson on lichens from Ken, who knew information about lichens even down to their Latin names. He had us wondering just how much bare rock we actually see when we're out hiking and climbing. The snow increased and our visibility decreased as we climbed, but the winds were tame and it never grew very cold the whole day. Below the final slopes to ridge crest, Ken gave us a short lesson in route selection. Even though the avalanche danger was low this chilly morning, we appreciated the quick pointers for occasions when the snow isn't so stable. We all split up for the final ascent to the crest. Ken gained the ridge at a lower point, and Erin and picked the middle, with John somewhere between. I tried to take advantage of some rocks further to the left before attacking the slopes directly. Erin and I both hit hard spots on our respective sections of slope, where kick steps became impossible. Just as I was about to fetch my ice ax from my pack, I took another step and found snow in much better shape. I was up the rest of the slope in a minute. Erin had a similar experience. For her, it took a traverse to the left to find some better snow.

We were together now for the easy ascent to Point 13,180, a minor bump in the ridge that's marked with a tall stick. A few more bumps separated us from the Peak 10 Electronics Station. I assume weather monitoring is among its functions. 400' remained between Peak 10’s summit and us. I led the climb on the ridge, and we avoided a cornice on the crest, which appeared from our perspective to be more of a hazard than it really was. We were thus side-hilling on some slanted terrain, which grew icy near the summit. I crossed this section with caution and reached rock under the summit. I watched the rest for a while before I turned to finish the climb. Erin called me, though, and I looked back to see Ken in an awkward position. Without his right arm to assist, the hard-packed section was posing a problem for him. John turned back to kick steps into the icy surface, which allowed Ken to cross. After hiking easy talus, we summitted Peak 10 at 10:30. Our visibility was now quite low now, and we could see neither of Peak 10's neighbors, Peak 9 to the north and Crystal Peak to the south.

We grew colder with our inactivity, and we got ready to move on. We didn't know how we wanted to descend. Ken talked about the alternatives, but he let us decide in the end. The descent north to the saddle with Peak 9 was steep, dropping over 800' in a quarter-mile. Given that we couldn't see down the ridge and that we knew nothing of the terrain we'd need to cross to return to the trailhead, this didn't seem like the right choice. We also had the option of dropping to the saddle with Crystal, but we couldn't see this way either. We decided to return via our ascent route. As Ken put it, "We can be happy that the mountain gods allowed us one summit today," and we started to head down. Unfortunately, the icy terrain was worse on the way down. The snow had been increasing, and the fresh layer sitting upon the hard layer afforded little traction. Ken didn't feel comfortable with this route, and none of us brought crampons along. We returned to the summit to consider our options again. Ken guessed that, given the prevailing winds, the ridge to the saddle with Crystal would have more forgiving snow and began heading that way. This option appeared more attractive on the map as well, descending a more modest 375' in a half-mile. These facts bore themselves out, and we made it to the saddle without any trouble.

Now to decide whether to push on for Crystal Peak or head home. Conditions got worse while we thought it over, so we turned our backs on Crystal. Now we had the interesting Crystal Creek drainage to deal with. We traversed grassy slopes and found the road back to the cabin. We couldn't yet see them, but we knew we'd have to deal with the gullies that we had inspected earlier that morning. However, the road was wide, so we took advantage of it while we could. Once there, the gullies held hard snow, and Ken couldn't cross them. He ascended up and around, while the rest of us traversed across. We all then cautiously downclimbed steep, loose rock, coated with the fresh layer of powder to get back down to the road. Another gully or two intervened, but now we were past the headwall between Upper and Lower Crystal Lakes. The next gully in front of us had a safe runout below it, and it appeared it would be a great glissade. John attempted it first, but he didn't like how hard the surface was and retreated to the rocks. I retrieved my axe, but once I sat down, I had second thoughts as well. We used rocks to descend about halfway before glissading the rest. Ken didn't have this luxury without his arm, and had a tough time negotiating the rocks, landing purposefully but painfully on his rear each time he slipped. After reaching the base of the gully, we hiked down a hundred feet of grass and rock to the valley.

The hard snow on the slopes had challenged us, but now we were treated to hard, supportive snow in the flat terrain around Lower Crystal Lake. Ken remarked that he hadn't been on such fine snow in basins the whole season, and we enjoyed an enchanting hike under light snow down to Francie's Cabin. Some great views of Father Dyer Peak and Mount Helen were our rewards on the way out, and entrenched a desire to climb the pair en route to Crystal Peak this summer. The snow remained firm the entire way back, and we arrived at the trailhead just after 2:00. We parted ways with Ken, and Erin drove us back to town. I was really happy with the day. Erin and I had never been out in conditions like today, but we had a great time doing it. John was pleased as well, not having been out in such weather in a year. We dined once again at the Old Chicago on Wadsworth. We hungrily ate our Taos pizza, and I earned my 10% discount from the restaurant's World Beer Tour! Cheaper food and a new bicentennial? It must have been a good day...