Fletcher Mountain – Southeast Ridge

Date: July 18th, 2009
Elevation: 13,951′
Route: Southeast Ridge, Grade I, Class 2, 4.2 miles 2251ft vert.
GPS: N 39° 24.198′ W 106° 07.698′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Jeff Warren

Pre-climb: Jeff has been working out on P90X and wanted to “Bring It”, so I decided take him to something bigger than the foothills around Boulder. (Funny side-note: As we were driving to Fletcher, Jeff was in the middle of telling a story about Alaska and spotted a 14er and called it a mere foothill…oh Jeff. Let me introduce to you to a hike in the “foothills”…then we will see what you have to say…)

Climb: Disclaimer: All hikes with Jeff require Starbucks before even leaving the house. We hit the road around 7:15a and made it to Breckenridge without any problem. We stopped to pickup some food and other things at Safeway because Jeff didn’t bring any water, any sunscreen, hiking boots, any food, a backpack, a jacket (well, he found a jacket luckily buried in his car at the trailhead). We immediately knew the day was going to be interesting when we saw the road blocked off to Blue Lake Trailhead and there was more than a few Search and Rescue vehicles on the mountain. Apparently the night before a group of hikers attempted the West Ridge (the crazy route up Quandary Pk I did mistakenly in 2001) and they couldn’t summit and bailed off the ridge, but went the wrong direction and ended up in the wrong gulch. A helicopter was required to find them.

We continued on up the path but immediately got lost going through the super over-grown bushes (we had a great rainfall here in Colorado this last June), and we got many cuts on our legs as we tried to wallow through them back to the main trail. When we reached the trail we met up with 3 other ladies who also had trouble following the trail and walked through their share of bushes before finding the correct path. (They had the blood on their legs to prove it)

The hike was now much easier and Jeff was still mentioning to me how after we got done with the hike he was going to do his P90X workout when we got home…and not just any of the workouts, the leg and back workout…sure Jeff.

Upon reaching the abandoned mine, we took a break and decided to see where the ladies were going today as there isn’t many people hiking a 13er. They too were headed up Fletcher, so we decided to team up and and head up the gully. (Meanwhile Quandary’s trailhead on the easy side, was a zoo.)

The snow had melted enough for us to make a plan of attack on how we were going to reach the saddle (13,294′) between Fletcher and Quandary. Because we were so late hiking, the snow had become an issue as it was melting fast in the warm sun and become soft and very slick when we walked on it, which meant it was going to be dangerous if we had to cross a large snowfield.

After confirming Jeff was still okay, I just busted a move up to the saddle (or “brought it” as Jeff would say), zig-zagging my way around the snow and rocks. Once I arrived at the saddle and could see the rest of the route, I plopped down for a break and noticed how late it actually was. 12:30 was pretty darn late in my book, but there was hardly a cloud in sight and the hike out wasn’t going to take that long so I decided it was still a go.

Once everybody else arrived we took a break for food and Jeff mentioned he was just going to “hang out” here at the saddle and wait for us. One of the ladies attempted to follow us for about 100 vertical feet, but once we reached some snow, she too called it quits saying she didn’t want to hurt her knees anymore and went back down to Jeff who was now beginning to show some signs of altitude sickness.

The three of us continued on, pressing up the final summit pyramid of Fletcher when we encountered our last problem. How to unlock the snow at the top of the mountain. We tried to find a ridge that allowed us to gain access without having to go over the snow, but we couldn’t find one and being only 50ft below the summit it was very frustrating to be so close but unable to see how we would reach it. Finally one of the ladies figured out a way to “hug” the snow and kick-step her way across it to the summit. Please checkout the pictures below to see what I mean.

Wow, what a summit!! I could see all sorts of 14ers from the top of Fletcher. La Plata, Elbert, Massive, Grays, Torreys, The Bells, Snowmass, Pyramid, they were all in sight. (Not to mention Quandary, which was dotted with about 30 people on the summit) But here we were, all alone on the summit of Fletcher.

In fact, no one had been up Fletcher for a week, and the summit log went all the way back to ’05.

After a short break we made our way back down with the two ladies deciding to glissade down most of it. However, after my experience on Mt. Yale, I decided against it, and actually ended up meeting them at the saddle at the same time.

We decided instead of going down the dangerous snow, we would take the ridge off to the west of where we came up. It would be a much smoother decent, even though the route wasn’t listed in any guidebook that we know of, we thought it would be more fun. And it was!

The hardest part was figuring out how to get off the ridge, but it meets up with the original trail right around the place where the mine is. And we noticed that’s where Jeff and the other lady were waiting for us. They had only arrived 15 minutes before us and they too wisely took the ridge down.

However, as we were coming down the final steep section, I ran out of water and very quickly went into a weird state of mind. I turned into a zombie and actually think once I ran out of water, I got dehydrated and was pretty confused. Luckily between the five of us, there was some extra water to be had once we all got together again and I slowly regained my consciousness on the way home.

One side note, as we were walking down the road to where they made us park the car because there was a search and rescue going on in the morning, there was ANOTHER going on as we were leaving. Two guys got lost going up the West Ridge of Quandary and their girlfriends/wives/significant others were in the parking lot with a worried look on their faces.

As soon as we got cell reception we called our wives to let them know everything was okay. Due to the late start and the slow pace we were a lot later in getting back to our car than we anticipated.

I was so worn out by being on the mountain in the sun that when we stopped to grab a bite at Smashburger, I could barely eat. Jeff though had no problem downing his BBQ Cheddar Burger and Garlic Fries goodness. However, Jeff did have a *huge* problem with his sunburn on the backs of his legs! Ouch!

All in all, good hike, great memories, great view, definitely recommend it. Don’t be a 14er snob, this 13er has just as great of views if not better than some of the 14ers.

Drive: 2h
Ascent: 4h
On Summit: 30min
Descent: 2.75h
Drive: 2h