Mt. Princeton – East Slopes

Date: May 31, 2004
Elevation: 14,197′
Rank: 20th
Route: East Slopes, Grade II, Class 2, 6.0 miles, 3200ft vert.
GPS: N 38° 44.966′ W 106° 14.516′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Colleen Rickard

Pre-climb: Memorial Day Weekend is supposed to kick-off the summer with an outdoor adventure filled with hot dogs, burgers and beer. Rest assured that this year was no different. Colleen and I got all our work done on Saturday so that we could attend church and barbeque’s on Sunday thus achieving the ultimate goal of having nothing scheduled for Monday and be able to climb Mt. Princeton. The weather forecast called for some slight snow the night before and heavy wind the day of our attempt. That didn’t matter, we were ready, we were pumped, we were…out of shape.

Climb: ‘Twas Memorial Day for only two hours when Colleen and I woke up from our “power nap” to begin the peaceful, nighttime drive to Mt. Princeton. But then, unexpectedly, loud noises began to filter through the walls of my house as I slowly became more alert. I dashed to the kitchen and looked out the window and sure enough…people were partying in the backyard of the house next to mine. Sheesh, what else should I expect at 2:15am on a Monday in Boulder anyway?

By 3am we were packed, gassed-up (not from the BBQ we had over the weekend mind you, haha), and on our way. By the time we got to Golden (20 min later) I was already showing signs of sleep deprivation and completely forgot where I was going and started driving to work, thus caused us to miss our exit! (Hey, to my credit it *was* a Monday) No bother, I took a back-way up Heritage Road and got onto I-70 and once again we were off! (For better or for worse)

The super-mega strong headwind made my gas-guzzling, non-aerodynamic SUV drive like a whiffle ball up Loveland Pass. Not to mention snow was falling and there were a few inches of accumulation at Eisenhower Tunnel. As far as omens go, I’m sure this would indicate certain death in our near future. No worry though, at the time I wasn’t awake enough to realize this and Colleen was trying her best to stay awake between her random twitches as she nodded off in the passenger seat. We continued on.

Just as we were pulling into Buena Vista did the sunrise start hitting the mountains and we snapped a couple pictures of the alpenglow on Mt. Princeton, which might I add rises absurdly abrupt out of the surrounding area. Yes, that would be what we were going to go climb for those of you that just scrolled down to look at the pictures. I shifted into 4-wheel drive with authority and drove up to the Radio Towers while remembering the cold night we slept there by ourselves last March.

We only saw one other couple the whole day, and they were at the Radio Towers packing up their tent after spending the night on Mt. Princeton. Colleen and I, along with the man and girl who we saw camping (whose names I obviously didn’t get) started hiking at 6:30am. The temperature was cool, but not too bad and within 30 minutes of swift hiking we had reached the turnoff of the road that leads up and around Tigger Peak. I asked camping man how the night was and he turned and looked at me and described it as insanely windy and they didn’t get much sleep because of the noise and the fluctuations it had on their tent which they were forced to tie to a tree.

The route has a short steep section, followed by an enjoyable dirt trail that unfortunately ends all too soon and turns to rocks and the most horrible sun-cupped snow that I’ve ever seen. Gigantic traverses were required on these slopes of rocks and snow, all while at a tremendous angle. Throwing caution to the wind, Colleen and I started across them. Take a moment to check out some of the pictures below. A slip or a fall would not have favorable results!

Due to the random blotches of snow on Princeton, there was no method to attaining the ridge between Tigger and Princeton without serious effort. Colleen and I slaved away at just trying to make progress towards the summit but it just wasn’t happening very quickly. Eventually, after a long time, we caught up to the other couple where they had finally attained the ridge and talked to them. They were out of gas (not a good nights sleep) and they did not like the conditions or the wind. (On the ridge where we were standing talking to the other couple at 13,200ft the wind had the power to put you right on your keester if it wanted to) The camping couple gracefully started heading back down to the Radio Towers and Colleen and I reassessed what we wanted to do.

The good news was that the weather was getting better and that it was only 9am or so and we only had 900ft vertically to climb and 0.6 miles horizontally to climb. The bad news was that it was all rocks, no particular trail we could really discern, steep as all get-out and the headwind made every step seem like a big deal. Well, we decided that if we had made it this far that going for the summit was justifiable. Off we went.

Roach calls the southeast ridge easy, but that’s probably in complete summer conditions and for somebody that’s in shape. Colleen and I were no superstars and weren’t about to prove it today. We slowly crawled (literally because of the wind) up the Sawatch peak otherwise known as Mt. Princeton until we arrived at the summit. I looked down at my watch and it had taken us 5 hours and 30 minutes to get to the top. Colleen and I didn’t care though, we climbed over the little snow hump at the summit and took shelter in the rocks and after taking a few pictures we started heading back down vowing to get down faster than we ascended.

Due to all the rocks and the afternoon snow, we had to be extra careful when descending. We obviously didn’t want to hurt ourselves coming down off the mountain which is easy to do. We contemplated going over Tigger Peak instead of making all the snow traverses again which were a nightmare, but decided that Tigger Peak’s descent on the opposite side would be gonzo steep.

Eventually, we made it back to dirt trail, had a goat escort us for a little ways and ultimately back to the road and my Blazer. This was no cake-walk and there were definitely no prizes being handed out, but we felt overjoyed. It was one heck of a great bonding experience. It took us about 5 hours to get down. Some might say it’s a long time but we were being careful and taking our time while enjoying the views. Later, when we were taking off our outer layers, we both noticed that we had torn holes in our pants at different points during the hike, probably from falling over and sliding after a gust of wind. About an hour later we were down off the mountain and in the Pizza Hut in Buena Vista ordering us up the biggest pizza they could make us and talking about how much fun we had working so hard. We were both extremely sore, no doubt, but it was all worth it.

Drive: 3.5h
Ascent: 5.5h
Summit: 15 min
Descent: 5h
Drive: 4.5h
Total: 10.75h

Wedding Registry

Hey everybody! I’m pleased to officially announce where Colleen and I are registered for our wedding! I’m sorry for the delay, and I apologize for people not living in Colorado where these stores are located at, but if you go to their website, you can find our registry there or you can find store locations to find the one nearest you. We are registered at Bed, Bath & Beyond (www.bedbathandbeyond.com) and The Great Indoors. For Bed, Bath & Beyond, just click the link to go to their website, then click Bridal and Gift Registry, then in the blanks type in my name: Matt Esser. It should come up with a listing for me and Colleen for the wedding on August 21, 2004. Click that and you should see our list. If you would like to purchase something for us for the wedding, you can do there by clicking on the “purchase” link next to the item you wish to contribute. We already have a Wok! I’m so excited. As for The Great Indoors, they don’t have an online registry that you can view, however, if you visit one of their stores you can access our list from there. Here is a link to their webpage detailing their store locations: The Great Indoors Store Locator If neither of those work for you, you can just click the “Make a Donation” button below this paragraph and just make a donation. Thanks for reading this paragraph, and hopefully Colleen and I will see you at our wedding!