Mt. of the Holy Cross – North Ridge

Date: August 24th, 2008
Elevation: 14,005′
Rank: 52nd
Route: North Ridge, Grade II, Class 1, 12.0 miles, 5525ft vert.
GPS: N 39° 28.083′ W 106° 28.75′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Mike Ross

Pre-climb: I have always been fascinated by Mt. of the Holy Cross ever since I was a kid. I would look at pictures taken in the 1800′s and be amazed that there existed such a mountain. So one would think if I were so impressed by a mountain why hadn’t I climbed it?

Well, the long and the short of it is, that I just didn’t ever get around to it! This mountain is routinely in the news for people getting lost, and turning up dead. Also, this mountain has a huge pass to climb up and over just to get started (1,000ft), and the only road accessing it is closed most of the year. I wanted a partner and I wanted summer trailhead access, and so the timing worked out for this weekend.

Climb: Mike and I finally had a free weekend together, and we left Saturday afternoon to head up to Holy Cross. We didn’t leave Westminster until nearly 4pm, and so we stopped in Vail for a quick bite to eat. (And to pick up more napkins for Mike’s mysterious bloody nose)

By the time we arrived at the trailhead (10,320ft) around 7pm, rainclouds temporarily built up and started to sprinkle on us. We geared up and headed up the pass with the goal of making it to the other side to camp for the evening.

The trail up Halfmoon Pass (11,640ft) doesn’t give a hiker much time to get warmed up. Added to this, (and further complicating the issue), we stopped at McDonald’s and both had Big Macs twenty minutes earlier. Needless to say, my heart wasn’t happy. I think next time I will eat something slightly healthier than McDonald’s mystery meat before hiking.

The sun was setting further behind the clouds and got to the point that when we were at the top of the pass, we couldn’t really see anything, so we had to put on our headlamps. The descent down into the valley was quick and straightforward with the switchbacks. A couple of times we turned off our headlamps just to see how dark it really was. It was scary dark. We couldn’t even see our hands.

We set up camp at around 10,700ft and went to sleep, the temperature was pleasantly warm. Mike had gotten a new tent, and so we tested it out and it worked really well and allowed great ventilation.

Mike’s watch alarm went off at 5am, but we didn’t get up until 5:45a and on the trail until 6a. At first, we thought we were heading the wrong way because we thought the mountains across the way to the west was where Holy Cross was and it looked really far. We wouldn’t discover until on our way out that one could actually see Holy Cross from the pass. (If done in the daytime, ha!) However, I did have my GPS with me and turned it on to establish that we were in fact on the correct trail.

The trail was well established up to the end of treeline at 11,600ft, which we made it to in about an hour from camp. At this point the rest of the route becomes boulder hopping and generally following a faint climbers trail from one cairn to the next.

We arrived at the ridge proper and still hadn’t seen anybody the entire trip. We were kinda surprised because there were plenty of cars at the trailhead.

Finally, we ran into a couple just where the snow started along the ridge. They had camped at 12,000ft and gotten an early start. They said there was only one group ahead of us, and they started climbing at midnight!! That’s six hours ahead of when we started!

We took to walking on the snow at their advice and made quick time because the angle of ascent finally leveled out for a while. Upon reaching the turn up the final summit ridge around where Angelica Couloir is, we took a break and enjoyed the view and the awesome weather that we were having.

Another group came around the Halo Route and was lost, thinking that was a hard route for being standard!

The final 600ft or so up to the summit went much quicker than we thought it would. And for Mike, he flew up it. Finally a group from behind us had caught up with us and I took a moment to chat with them as we arrived on the summit together just before 10am. My final Sawatch 14er! Note to self: I love finishing ranges…

The views from Holy Cross are awesome! One can see all the Elk Range 14ers from the summit. We took a moment to walk down to the top of the Cross Couloir and look down it. It was pretty steep, I’d say 45 degrees or slightly higher. (While reading this online doesn’t sound that steep, but once you’re in it, I’m sure you will think otherwise!)

The trip down was more of the same on any mountain. You see the giant ant trail of people that shouldn’t be on the mountain still coming up the mountain even as the day gets later and later. It just amazes me how little water people bring up for this hike. I used every last drop of my 2L from camp and we were climbing in the cool part of the day!

We arrived back down at camp at 1:30pm, napped and soaked our feet in the cold river, then packed up and left camp around 2:30pm. I was beat. The thought of climbing the 970ft out of the “hole” and back over the pass again made me groan more than once. However, the climbing went much faster than I thought it would, and once on the other side I could relax knowing it was downhill from there. The clouds were finally starting to roll in, but were south of us and were just starting to reach us as we got back to the car.

I can see how a person gets lost on this mountain. There are many drainage’s as your coming off the mountain and if you get into the wrong one, it’s a huge effort to get back to the correct area. I highly recommend this mountain for anybody looking for a more challenging hike, just be prepared and save your legs for climbing over the pass on your way out.

Drive: 3h
Ascent: 5.75h
Summit: 15 min
Descent: 5.25h
Drive: 2.75h
Total: 11.25h

“Camping” 8/16 and 8/17

Usually when I go “camping”, that means that we carry what we can on our backs, hike in a ways, find a stream and setup our camp and spread out our minimal gear and use what we can for more purposes than it was intended.

However, this trip started off leaving town Saturday morning in a horrible downpour that started Friday morning and showed no signs of letting up until Sunday afternoon. Yet, we still convinced ourselves to go camping. Furthermore, since I was going with Fred and Mark, (and they have nice offroad vehicles), Bret let me borrow his Jeep so we could join along.

The Rubicon didn’t really have a “trunk” and so we had to pack, then unpack everything, then figure out a smarter way to pack to make everything fit. After passing the Engineering Exam, we drove to meet up with the other guys on the west side of town.

There aren’t many pictures from the first part of this trip because it was pretty steadily raining until we got up I-70 a ways. When we turned off the highway at Empire, (well, most of us turned off, I missed the exit and ventured on into Georgetown before I could turn around) and then took a right on Main Street to head up to Bill Moore Lake area.

This requires a decent 4×4 vehicle, and we stopped to let some air out of our tires before continuing. Luckily the rain had stopped coming down, and our hopes were high. When we finally bounced into camp, I realized I had forgotten our rain fly to our tent. And this was the one time we would actually need it because it was a guarantee that it was going to rain this weekend.

After Fred helped me whip together a solution (what *can’t* be solved by tarps and bungie cord?) we decided to setup the gazebo and table and furnaces…

Wait a minute.

Furnaces? What kind of camping is this? I used to knock it, but when it’s snowing outside, I have to admit, having a furnace is pretty nice. Along with having a gazebo and tables and chairs and hot cocoa. Thanks to Fred, we had pretty much everything we could want with us.

Claire was a champ and did great staying warm. Colleen had her bundled up with just about as much as we could and then let her sleep in her pack-and-play. Part-way through the night she crawled into her baby mummy bag that we got for her and Colleen put her next to her on the cot.

Wait a second.

Cots? Yes, we had bought a couple luxury items before the trip, and these worked out a lot better than air mattresses. With a cot you not only are up off the cold ground, but you can store stuff underneath so you don’t lose the space in your tent like you would with a mattress.

Fred, Mark and I played a few holes of golf at the campsite.

Ok, now this is getting out of hand.

Yes, Fred did bring some spare golf clubs with him that he didn’t care about, along with some whiffle balls, so we would have something to do in camp.

We made a trip up to the actual lake and it was freezing! The lake was partly frozen over, I didn’t even bother breaking out my new fly rod. Instead, we setup Claire’s Barbie Rod. However, I don’t think there were too many fish in this lake.

The next day we packed up and then drove the loop all the way around to Empire Hilton. Which is a semi-abandoned cabin that’s really creepy. The trail to get there was a little rougher (and slicker, due to all the rain) than Fred and Mark remembered. However, in the monster vehicle that we had, we were able to make it over all the obstacles and back down to the trailhead.

On our next trip, we just might have to pick up a few more luxury items before going, because they made this trip a lot more enjoyable.

On the way home we stopped at Beau Jo’s and it was so yummy.