6/27/04 – Emma Burr Mountain, Mount Kreutzer, "Chalk Rock Mountain" (UN 13,055) & Jones Mountain – East Ridge, South Ridge, South Slopes, West Slopes

11.0 miles, 4170'


After seriously considering some options among the centennial 13ers, like Mount Adams or Crystal, Pacific, and Atlantic, Erin and I decided to climb Emma Burr Mountain, the 229th tallest peak in Colorado. While Erin's grandfather was the first of her immediate family born in Colorado, she is related to a contingent of Burrs who've been in Colorado for generations. Therefore it's not much of a stretch to think that she may be related to Emma Burr, whoever she was. The mountain's naming origins are not well documented. Every effort I've made to uncover the history behind the name has failed. A query at the USGS's Geographic Names Information System yields no information. The recently published Colorado Summit Hikes for Everyone says that no one knows where the peak got its name. Terri Horvath once looked up Emma Burr in a book she has on mountain names, but that search came up empty, as well. One day we'll know who Emma Burr was, but for now she remains a mystery. Anyway, the fact that Erin may have a "family mountain" has attracted us for a while. We considered it a major failure on our part that we didn't make the time for Emma Burr last year, and we swore not to let 2004 pass without climbing her.

We had laid eyes on Emma Burr from Emerald Peak last August. After that hike I uncovered a bit of minutia about the peak for which I was told "TMI!" For that reason alone, it's worth repeating. Emma Burr happens to be the highest ranked summit on the Continental Divide between UN 13,762 near Emerald Peak and Carson Peak all the way down in the San Juans near Sunshine Peak. That's over 160 miles of the Divide! Emma Burr is also one of the most prominent of Colorado's thirteeners. A weird obsession over bizarre statistics is great and all at home, but nothing compares to getting out there and experiencing the peak for itself. Beautiful Emma Burr would exceed all our expectations.

While Emma Burr can be accessed from Tincup Pass, we thought it would be a more aesthetic trip if we climbed from Mineral Basin at the head of South Cottonwood Creek. Erin and I had long envisioned a loop hike during which we could pick up a few other 13ers in the area. Some beta from Teresa Gergen and from the CMC's Guide to the Colorado Mountains convinced us that our route would go. Erin drove us up the South Cottonwood Creek road, which gets rougher past Cottonwood Lake. I don't know if a passenger car could make it as far as we did for certain, but I think if you took it slow, you'd be fine. We parked at the junction between the South Cottonwood road and Forest Road 344A. If all went well, we wouldn't retrace a single step the whole day. We were pretty wiped out from a lack of sleep, so we took an hour's nap before hitting the road. The road continues up Mineral Creek for a good ways. If your only goal were Emma Burr, a 4WD vehicle could take you further into the basin. We hiked along the road, catching the last few minutes of alpenglow on Emma Burr's north ridge. As we hiked deeper into the basin, we had some nice views of two of the other three 13ers we were aiming for: Mount Kreutzer and Jones Mountain. The previous evening had been a wet one, so some of the best views of the morning were of Emma Burr's lovely north face dusted in snow. I think that Emma Burr's north ridge stole the show, however. This fluted ridge is more rugged than Emma's north face, and we gawked at it all day.

The Cumberland Pass quadrangle shows the road ending at a mine at 11,900', but it actually continues a bit further. Conveniently, it dropped us off at the base of a gully leading to the saddle between UN 12,900 and Emma Burr. A quick few hundred feet brought us to the ridge crest with nice views to the southern Sawatch and of Emma's east ridge, our route to the summit. We hiked up tundra, past some alpine sunflowers, and reached the base of the ridge. The ridge was easy talus hiking for much of the way, but as we drew higher, it transitioned to some light scrambling. Near the summit, my trekking pole made a wretched sound on the rock I placed it on. Much to my dismay, I noticed the pole no longer had a tip! I had replaced the tip recently, and I mustn't have put it on tight enough. I started backtracking, not really expecting to find anything. I had gone back down the ridge just a few feet, and there it was sitting on a ledge I had just scrambled over! What incredible fortune! We reached the summit at around 9:00 in the morning. The view into cloud-covered Taylor Park was spectacular! Most of the times I've had the opportunity to see Taylor Park in the morning, it's been covered in clouds. I'm not sure if I'd want to live there...

Erin and I ate some food, and then we started a long traverse on the Continental Divide – 3.5 miles of it to be precise. The whole ridge to Mount Kreutzer was never more difficult than class 2+, but the ridge did feature a great number of ups and downs on talus, which made for slow going. All the while, we kept looking back to Emma's achingly beautiful north face. On one of the bumps was a wooden cross, an interesting find on such an obscure section of the Divide. I wonder how old it is. The exposure looking down the east face of Emma's rugged north ridge was exciting, and the cliff faces were a sight to behold from up close. The ridge bends to the west before swinging back east toward Mount Kreutzer at the saddle. This bend gave us an awesome vantage on the north face of Point 13,055 (not to be confused with UN 13,055, which we'd summit later in the day). After hiking a little nearer to Kreutzer, we could see how closely this face mirrors Emma Burr's north face, fascinating!

During all this intrigue, the weather had been rapidly changing around us. All around us clouds were appearing out of nowhere. No thunder yet, but we were wondering if Kreutzer, which was a short 355' above us, would be our final summit for the day. There was no good escape route from our position anyway, so our only option was to go up and over Kreutzer. As if the mountains wanted to give us a visual clue that we were on a new peak, the rock on Kreutzer – light shades of grey and absolutely covered with orange lichen (I'd be remiss not to mention that this is known as Xanthoria) – is completely different from that found on Emma Burr. It took only a few minutes to reach the summit. Here's a view of Mount Princeton from Kreutzer. We signed the summit register and kept moving. Though the terrain between Kreutzer and Chalk Rock Mountain would be much mellower – a tundra walk instead of a talus hop – Kreutzer is more or less at the halfway point of the ridge between Emma Burr and Chalk Rock so we had a long way to go. We carefully considered the weather. While the bottom was dropping out of the clouds surrounding us, we seemed to be in an oasis of good weather. We pressed on.

The tundra hiking went quickly. Once I tried to skirt one of the bumps along the way, and after struggling through some loose rock, I arrived back at the crest at the same time as Erin, who stayed high. I think we made it to Chalk Rock in half the time it took us to traverse from Emma Burr to Kreutzer. While we rested on the summit, I kept hearing a bell. I thought I was losing my head! Suddenly a pair of rottweilers, both wearing bells, appeared from the east. Their owner, a nice fellow from the Denver area, soon followed, and we chatted with him for a while. The two rottweilers had been abused, but he's rehabilitated them nicely. They were very friendly and accustomed to strangers. He said he had planned to climb Emma Burr, but didn't think the weather would cooperate. Rain showers were all around us. Princeton, for example, was getting doused. But the skies above us remained less threatening, and we still hadn't felt a drop. We were confident we could at least descend Chalk Rock's east ridge. From the saddle, we could decide if we had enough of a window for the 640' climb up Jones Mountain's west slopes. What we didn't know was that our descent of Chalk Rock's east ridge would be the most fun we'd have the whole day.

The ridge would prove to be quite rugged for more than a quarter-mile. When some enjoyable scrambling on the crest became more difficult, we ended up using a surprising ledge system on the south side of the ridge. Every time we thought this ledge would run out, we'd turn a corner, and there'd be more! This picture shows the entire craggy section of the ridge, and here's a shot looking back at Chalk Rock and the ridge from the saddle.

At the saddle, the weather remained the same, so we dropped our packs and went for it. In a matter of minutes we were signing the register atop our fourth summit of the day. The odd thing was that three of our four summits had registers, but someone had cleaned the paper out of all of them. Fortunately, I had some along, so I left a few sheets in each. Here's a view of Mount Yale and one of Chalk Rock from Jones' summit. We zipped back down the slopes, retrieved our packs, and descended a loose gully toward a lake in upper Mineral Basin. The fortunate thing about the gully we chose is that it had a game trail, making our descent easier. Chalk Rock's east ridge held one more surprise for us. Erin spotted this incredible cave lurking below the ledge system. Too cool!

After wrapping around to the unnamed lake's south side, we picked up the road that would lead us back to our car. There's actually a lot of mining roads on Jones' south slopes, so a couple of times, we were just taking our best guess at road junctions. But we figured it out, and we were back at Erin's 4Runner in little more than half an hour. As we arrived, our rottweiler friend was passing by on the other road. He had bailed on Mount Kreutzer, but with sunny skies now overhead, he was regretting it. We said our goodbyes, and Erin and I headed out to Coyote Cantina for a satisfying lunch. What a sweet trip this was. I think it's indicative of the surprises that await when you start exploring Colorado's more obscure summits.