10/5/03 – James Peak & Fox Mountain – South Slopes, North Ridge

8.15 miles, 3200'


Erin and I wanted Snowmass Mountain this weekend, but we were discouraged by the weather reports. I still just want to enjoy that mountain, and the prospect of hiking back 10 miles in the cold and potentially in a thunderstorm just wasn't all that appealing. We settled on James Peak, the Gilpin County highpoint (one of two county highpoints that would extend our home glob dramatically) and namesake of Colorado's newest wilderness area. Unfortunately, we would see for ourselves that legislators were compelled to undermine the spirit of the wilderness act in order to add the James Peak Wilderness to the system.

We drove out to Alice and the Saint Mary's Glacier trailhead Sunday morning. The 90-minute drive to the TH was a real treat! Though Erin had never been, this was a return of sorts for me. I have fond memories of walking up to Saint Mary's Lake when I visited Colorado with my family in August of 1995. Erin and I parked at one of a few remaining parking areas in Alice, taking care not to park anywhere that would aggravate the locals. The signs all around town regarding parking restrictions are evidence of the Alice residents' acrimonious relationship with the multitudes who come to town to visit the glacier.

We started the hike at 8:00 that morning, which is apparently earlier than your average visitor to the glacier because there was only one family and a fisherman at the lake that morning. I immediately identified the slopes that my siblings and I had climbed in 1995. We had been amazed at all the snow that we were slogging up – it was the middle of summer! I remember it being hard work, and I think we only made it up 2/3-3/4 of the way up the slope (a slope that I had thought would bring us near to a mountain's summit! *lol*). I didn't know it at the time, but 1995 must have been a good snow year; there was so much snow, we didn't realize that we never got near the glacier itself. These slopes were completely bare on my second visit this October morning.

Erin and I hiked past the lake and used a road to access the glacier. Saint Mary's glacier was icy, sun-cupped, and atrophied, making for fun if uneven travel. As we hiked up the snowfield, we noticed two people below us who we figured were just making the hike up the snow. Soon we reached the expansive flats under James Peak that Roach refers to as "Jamaica." These flats are beautiful, but they also provide easy terrain for 4WD vehicles. As a consequence poor James is riddled with roads, both roads that are being reclaimed by the tundra and roads that would be used this very day. As soon as we popped out onto the flats, we witnessed scores of mountain bluebirds flitting about the rocks and grasses, the males splashing their beautiful turquoise across the tans of the tundra. We kept on unintentionally perturbing this one group of the bluebirds. Every few steps we took would drive them further west, the same direction we were heading, and so it went for a good third of our hike across the flats.

James Peak stood tall across the expanse, but clouds obscured its upper 1000' and the rest of the Continental Divide. Our views to the south included the Evans group, where we were last week, and Grays and Torreys. It looks like the Grays group especially received a few inches of snow from the system that came through before the weekend. On James, though, we wouldn't find a lick of snow aside from a small snowfield on the South Slopes.

Maybe it was the clouds or how flat the surroundings are, but James Peak looked deceptively close. Erin and I crossed Jamaica side-by-side to spread out the damage to the tundra. Despite all the roads, there is no trail between James and the glacier. We passed a small rocky point and crossed a major 4WD road with fresh tracks, and we couldn't help but wonder if we were in James Peak Wilderness yet. We bore to the right to eventually meet up with another road that clearly slanted up James' gentle east slopes. Nature rewarded us for attempting to stay off the tundra when we could because soon after reaching this road, we ran into a group of five ptarmigan. We hadn't spotted any in a few weeks, so it was a treat to see how white they've turned. They're getting close to 2/3 white at this point in the year, and they stick out probably a little more than they'd like to right now.

We made our way up the road, and behind us we noticed those two folks making their way across Jamaica. Our road swung south and gave us a look across at Mount Bancroft's cliffy southeast ridge and down steep cliffs and slopes to the many lakes near Loch Lomond. We then switched a trail, since the road appeared to head in a westerly fashion directly toward the Continental Divide. This trail is heavily cairned (Quandary-style) and very easy to follow. We were now in the clouds. We'd intermittently receive some overhead sunshine, which quickly would be swallowed back into the clouds. As we gently gained more elevation, we saw lots of plants with coatings of rime, always a delicate sight! The trail leads to James' southeast ridge with great views down the peak's dramatic east face with James Peak Lake 2000' below. I enjoyed peering down at least three of James' trademark couloirs, including the incredible Shooting Star couloir right next to the summit.

There was a welcome wind shelter on the summit, big enough to be a fort, where we spent about twenty minutes before giving up on the clouds and starting back. We bumped into the pair of folks we had been seeing on the way up. They were Lon and Lisa of the CMC, and Lon was even carrying a new summit log. We told them that the tube on James had been another victim to cap-bashers, but they had an idea to keep the log dry. We chatted with them for a good while, before we parted ways. Erin and I took another look at Bancroft on the way down, this time with a view of gorgeous Ice Lake. There's more than just Ice Lake in this basin, however; Reynolds, Stewart, and Ohman Lakes were shimmering jewels. While we were gazing at the sights, one other pair of hikers passed us on their way up James.

As we got back on the Jamaica flats, we saw that the clouds had finally lifted, which pleased us because we got a view of James' wonderful east face. At this point we started noticing the sounds of engines and could see 4WD traffic on the major road we crossed earlier. This road reaches Jamaica from over the unranked 12er Kingston Peak and leaves via a southerly ridge to go on to Alice. As I found out later, it also marks the eastern boundary of the James Peak Wilderness. Wilderness areas, as a rule, do not permit such a road, because the noise from the ATVs and SUVs reaches into the wilderness, damaging the experience. However, to pass the James Peak legislation, lawmakers had to insert special provisions to maintain the "historic" access for 4-wheel enthusiasts. I suppose it's better than no designation at all, but sadly, this may be another "half-hearted wilderness" to go along with the Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness.

Once we reached the glacier, we started running into all kinds of people, even two skiers! I asked one of the two if skiing is any fun on this kind of snow. He replied succintly, "No!" We saw at least 20 people and six dogs on the way back to the lake and twice as many on the road back to the trailhead. Before we made for the car, though, we took a brief detour to climb Fox Mountain, an unranked 10er that rises east of Saint Mary's Lake. It's kind of funny, but the terrain on Fox is far rougher than what we experienced on the route we chose up James. Fox has a lot of boulders and a cool summit block, while we saw mostly open grass slopes with sparse rocks on James. I picked a short fourth-class line up the northeast side of Fox, which was a lot of fun. When I arrived, Erin was waiting for me at the top, where we had a keen view of the circus on the glacier.

After getting back to the car at 1:30, we drove back to Denver, and being in the highpointing mood, we stopped at Kipling and Belleview to tag the Denver County highpoint before going on to Erin's dad's house for barbeque.