Peak V E Ridge, & Valhalla Ski, & N TenMile E Ridge
August 20, 2011 in Central
Yesterday Elke Dratch and I did the East Ridge of Peak V starting from about the halfway point between V and W. We then descended the full S Ridge back to the Pitkin Trail. Total = 11 miles in 9.5 hours. Excellent Class 3-4 rock on the ascent route (and descent). Route is simply to take the trailless fork of Pitkin Valley at about 11000 and then curve around the nice slopes to the VW ridge.
We found an old mine on the last slope down to the trail with a 12-foot deep square hole and many old metal tools.
Has this ridge been climbed before? Since I believe Robert Porter of Breckenridge did just about the whole divide N to S, he has surely descended the VW ridge. The recent post on Peak X has a nice view of the VW ridge.
Some news from earlier in the season:
Valhalla: On June 22, 2011, Jonathan Kriegel and I put in a big one-day effort to get to the summit of Valhalla with our skis, starting from Vail, we then skied the E Face (some avy issues), and descended out to rock creek. Details at http://www.stanwagon.com/wagon/coloski/summitco/summitcoGore/summitcoGore.html
On July 22, 2011, Joe Kramarsic, David Nebel, and I did the full E Ridge of North Ten Mile Peak. Rope used, though I think it can all be called Class 4. This is the peak (12736) that some call West Deming.
Stan Wagon said on August 25, 2011
It appears I cannot edit my post. It was ROBERT PORTER of Breck. who did the divide, not Theron….
Suggest the name Volkswagen Ridge for this VW ridge.
Stan Wagon said on August 15, 2012
Update a year later: went back to the E Ridge of N Tenmile Peak in early August with a friend and no rope. No problems at the crux and managed the entire route 90 minutes faster than last year.
Stan wagon said on September 2, 2012
A picture of the crux of this ridge is now at the last link at:
http://stanwagon.com/wagon/rockclimbing/rockclimbing.html
And for the last little adventure of the season Elke and I did the cool ridge from Rain Peak towards Silverthorne Peak. Again, no rope. I figured I had done this several times, so let’s go light. Well, the downclimb (5.1) around the first problem that I had used before (to the right) was too intimidating to start down with no rope. So we went to the very end of the nose and I got down — little scary — on a 5.5 or 6 section that was not too exposed. Then walking back around to the left I saw a way that Elke could get down that was class 4. So the whole thing does go at Class 4, but it takes some effort to find.
Then on the next section I had no memory of what to do (last time was 14 years ago) and after several false starts we realized that a N side avoidance of the towers would work, on really nice ledges.
The rock up there is quite beautiful, and the summit register indicates that others are doing this route too.