7/2/05 – Music Mountain – East Ridge

12.0 miles, 4620'


Music Mountain has been on our minds since our July 2003 trip to the area with Dave Cameron when we climbed Music's neighbors, Tijeras and Milwaukee Peaks. I remember the three of us discussing Music, wondering if its south ridge, the one nearest Tijeras, is a viable route. An inspection with binoculars revealed some very tough-looking steps on that ridge, so we retreated to Sand Creek without taking a closer look. Later, I reread Kirk Mallory's trip report and saw that Music's east ridge is the way to go and that it entails some fun scrambling. Definitely a peak to add to our list!

We had plans to join Kirk, Teresa Gergen, and some others in the Culebra Range over the holiday weekend, but Erin and I decided not to go because of the steep cost and some logistical problems. We had committed to a 4th of July barbeque on Sunday evening, so an extending camping trip wasn't an option. What to do with our two open days this weekend? Several peaks came to mind, but we decided to climb Music on Saturday for the climb's fun factor, a chance to revisit Sand Creek, and an opportunity to scope out Milwaukee Peak's crux ramp conditions for a forthcoming trip to climb Pico Asilado.

Erin wasn't able to drive up the Music Pass Road all the way to the trailhead like she was on our last visit. The road can be rugged, with small slabs penetrating the surface, making for some awkward driving. In the dark she was stymied by the road's crux, at around 10,000'. We turned around and parked, unfortunately close to some people who were camping. I felt bad about all the noise that we made, not the least of which must have been Erin's 4Runner struggling to negotiate the crux, but we kept our racket to a minimum and started the haul up the road. It was frustrating to hike on the road because we had timed our arrival so that we'd reach Music Pass at daybreak to catch the beautiful sunrise painting our peaks. We maintained a fevered pace up the extra mile and 700' we added to our day, and the sun still hadn't cleared the horizon by the time we got to the parking lot. We kept marching swiftly, but a couple hundred feet below the pass, the sun broke through, illuminating the forest with other-worldly reds. Disappointed, I still pushed hard and managed to get some nice shots of the Tijeras and Music bathed in orange. But I have to wonder just how brilliant the alpenglow was ten or fifteen minutes earlier! Some other time...

We descended the 400' from the pass while admiring Milwaukee Peak and then took the nearly immediate turn for Lower Sand Creek Lake. There were a bunch of campers at the lake, but not a one of them had risen. Fools! If they only knew the show on Tijeras that they had just missed! Erin and I were reminded of what a stunner Music Mountain is viewed from the lake's shore, as well.

Time to get serious! We knew from Dave's experience that there are some cliffs bands on Music's east ridge, and from the pass we were able to identify them. Avoiding these obstacles was straightforward; by staying on the minor ridge that reaches southeast from the ridge proper, we remained on easy, forested terrain all the way to treeline. We continued the steep grunt to 12,100' where we gained the ridge crest. Looking back to Tijeras to the one side was a delight, but the view into the upper Sand Creek valley was spectacular, especially Milwaukee Peak and the steep, contorted slabs that guard the basin under Marble Mountain.

Once we made it to Point 12,579, we got our first view of our route up Music. From this vantage, the narrow east ridge blends in with with the peak's faces, making the route look very intimidating, but we had faith that the climb was something we could handle. The ridge became narrow very quickly, and we were loving every minute of the enjoyable scrambling. We reached a dramatic notch, which required a short downclimb and marks the division between the more level section of ridge and its steepest section. Something we didn't realize during our trip two years ago is that Music Mountain is composed of the same rock as Tijeras, not the Crestone conglomerate that's found on Milwaukee Peak to the north. On the face between Music and Milwaukee, you can actually see the point demarcating the two formations. This means that the rock on Music can be loose in spots, illustrated by the "coffin-sized" boulder Gary Swing liberated from Music's west slopes a week before, so we tested our holds very carefully.

The scrambling remained delightful, and we topped out on Music's south summit in what felt like no time. Music's true summit is the northernmost of three highpoints, so we began the traverse. Connecting the southern with the middle summit is just class 2, but the ridge gets interesting from there on. We downclimbed onto the west side of the ridge to enter the notch south of the true summit. We considered dropping off the ridge even further to get on some easier looking terrain, but we decided that area looked a lot looser. We ended up finding a good route leading directly from the notch to the top. The toughest move for me was taking a couple steps across an angled slab without a good hold to work with. After that there were a couple of rocks to straddle over, giving the ridge a knife-edge feel, but from there it was easy scrambling the rest of the way. At the summit, there was one more point just to the north that looked like it could be the highest point, but once we made the quick traverse to it, we could tell that it's not. The weather was perfect and holding nicely, so we spent a lot of time on the summit. Once we traversed back to the south summit, we spent another thirty minutes there, too!

Our downclimb of the east ridge went well. This time, instead of scrambling across the more level section of the ridge, we dropped down a gully and traversed below the rugged crest. From atop the east ridge, you can't help but notice that the cliffs on Tijeras' northwest slopes are actually a contiguous formation of cliffs that reach all the way north to form Music's east face. Milwaukee Peak kept on grabbing my attention on the way back. I must have taken a dozen pictures of it as we hiked the gentle ridge! It was fun seeing our perspective change while watching cloud shadows pass over it. We hiked down the cushy tundra slopes back to the lake, and once we reached Sand Creek, we took some time to soak our feet in the rushing waters. We couldn't have had a more relaxing day! I love hiking and climbing with Erin, taking a more relaxed timetable than we will when hiking with other partners. Unless the weather's threatening – or there's another peak to climb! – there's always time with her to stop and smell the flowers.

We begrudgingly stuffed our rejuvenated feet back into our boots and made the hike back over Music Pass and down to the car. Back at the road's crux, Erin saw where she had gone wrong. There are a few large holes on this steep section, but one of these holes is filled in with a large rock, and Erin remembered that this rock abetted our drive in 2003. Next time, she'll be ready for it! We completed our day with a ten-hour round trip time, but if you're looking for a good estimate for the trip, remember that we hiked an extra two miles and we spent a good two hours lounging about in various places. Looking for a great scramble in the Sangres without the crowds? You'd do yourself a favor to consider Music Mountain!