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I had some interesting side business to take care of on Saturday and my usual hiking partners were really worn out from last weekend so I hooked up with Bill and Johnson whom I’d hiked with numerous times in the past.  Johnson was interesting in hiking in the Gores so obviously I tagged along.  Bill and I went out to meet him at Shrine Pass on Saturday evening to camp out the night before the hike.  I was planning on suggesting that we try to climb “East Partner Peak” and Peak “W” which are at the end of the Pitkin Creek Valley.  It turned out though that Johnson had been up there the day before.  So we decided to hike up Bighorn Creek and attempt Grand Traverse.

After a good nights sleep that featured a good amount of rain, thunder, and lightning, we set out for the Bighorn Trailhead.  We started hiking by a little after seven.  The trail started up steeply as usual but wasn’t as bad as Pitkin or Booth.  The trail also passed through a giant aspen grove that must be just amazing in fall.  As we approached the first views of the Grand Traverse I noticed that Bill and Johnson were slowing down a good bit.  It sounded like they were going to try to climb the peaks but they might just run out of time because of their speed.  They were sort of expecting me to go on alone but I didn’t want to attempt that ridge alone.  So, I decided this would be just a scouting trip so we decided to hike up to the cabin and then see what we wanted to do there.

The trail description at the Bighorn Trailhead mentions a cabin about 3 miles up the trail.  It didn’t take us that long to arrive at the cabin which is halfway between Grand Traverse and North Traverse Peaks.  The description mentioned how the door was kept unlocked so that hikers could use it if necessary.  It made the cabin sound like it was in good condition.  Not so.  Although you could camp inside it, it’s very dilapidated and the roof is very short.  There was a couple of tarps and candles in there.  I’d take a tent any day over the mice and ghosts that are certain to roam around in there!

After hanging out at the cabin for a while, we headed up the valley.  Johnson said he wanted to hike up to the next shelf.  So, I stashed my pack off the trail and brought only my camera along.  We hiked around and the trail started to fade fast.  At a large meadow that was full of Parry’s Primrose, the trail completely stopped.  We kept wandering around.  As we approached some of the upper tarns, a prominent 12er at the end of the valley began to look appealing.  I suggested that maybe I could go on ahead and try to climb the 12er.  They said they would try to follow. Just before I took off, we saw some people on the saddle between this 12er and North Traverse Peak.  Amazing!  I never see anybody up here. I went on ahead and spied my route.  I would climb a short scree gully then traverse across grassy ledges to the ridge then head to the top.  The scree gully was a real pain.  It was very loose and because I wasn’t planning on hiking very far, I left my trekking poles way back down by the cabin.  Oh well, I continued on and emerged on to the more comfortable grass slopes.

The hikers coming down were yelling down at Bill and Johnson trying to have them point out the best route down from the saddle.  Going straight down the saddle led to cliffs so they had to traverse.  Because they were asking directions, they must have come from the other side.  The clouds looked really really dark emerging from the other drainage.  Not hearing any thunder or feeling rain, I continued up and arrived on the ridge.  As I approached the summit, I realized that I would see Keller off in the distance.  At this point I had great views of East Thorn, Willow, and Mount Valhalla, the latter of which is a very prominent mountain.  I got a shock on the summit – there was a higher mountain right in front of me barely 100 yards away.  I realized that I was indeed on Keller! The day before I was planning on going up Pitkin Valley so I brought the Pitkin map…so I didn’t have the chance to really look at the map of Bighorn Valley and Johnson’s map cut off early.  At the top of this peak, which was actually a shoulder of Keller, I took my remaining pictures.  I took a lot of panoramas, picking out the peaks in the heart of the Gores to the Northwest and then the southeastern section.  I went up to the southern summit of Keller.  At first, I thought this was the true summit but after looking at the map later, I realized the true summit was still a ways off although it was only thirty feet higher than the summit.

I was almost positive that Bill and Johnson turned around so I started back down. I caught up with the other hikers at one of the snowfields at the head of the valley and they informed me that they were still up there.  I don’t know how, but I passed them.  The other hikers were 5 college students who had hiked from Rock Creek to Bighorn, a pretty short but neat shuttle hike.  We stayed at the cabin for a while then they headed out.  About forty five minutes later, Bill and Johnson showed up.  Johnson ended up staying in the valley but Bill had climbed to the top of the 12er.  As we hiked out, we got rained on and the dark clouds made the scene pretty gloomy…but it was really neat to hike in and a reprieve from the hot sun.  This was a really fun hike.  I’m hoping to return here and camp out near the cabin the attempt the Grand Traverse the following day.

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We took a week break after climbing Ice Mountain but when the second week came around, I didn’t want to miss another nice weekend.  Incredibly enough however, nobody else was available this weekend so I opted to try a truly solo trip to Outpost Peak in the Gore Range.  Outpost Peak is the high point at the end of the jagged ridge which separates the Pitkin Lake Valley and the Booth Lake Valley.  I decided to approach the climb from Pitkin Lake to minimize my bushwacking time.  It turns out that the the approach from Booth Lake is much easier but indeed includes at least a mile and a half of bushwacking.
 
I left Denver around 3:15 pm and began hiking around 5:30 or so if my memory is correct.  I decided that I would hike to about 11,000 feet, which is below the lake and facing the relatively small cirque that forms on the east side of the mountain.  I hiked in pretty quickly and arrived with a decent amount of sunlight left.  At first, I found a campsite situated up on a knoll overlooking the trail but when I went to pump water, I spied a much better site and moved there.  This site was on the western side of the valley on the western side of the creek and the trail and was probably within a hundred yards of the base of the mountain slopes.  I had a good look at Outpost Peak and was a bit worried as there was a lot more snow on the eastern face than I was expecting.

As the sun was setting, I started to feel isolated and a little unnerved.  I’d done plenty of solo overnights before, but only on fourteeners and on fourteeners, you’re never truly alone.  Well, I was indeed truly alone on this trip and I was about 4 miles from civilization over rough terrain.  So, I decided to build a small fire.  As soon as I got it going, my spirits and courage really perked up.  I guess I know how nomads and primitive hunters, etc felt – a camp fire really injects life, energy, and security into an overnight situation.  Plus, it injects a small dose of carbon into the local forest economy!
 
I slept great that night in my small bivy sack and woke up around 6.  That’s very late for a snow climb.  I got started fast though and was able to take advantage of the steep hard snow chutes that led up to the basin.  Once I got into the basin though, the sun had been hitting the face for about an hour.  By the time I was up on the face, the snow was really slimy and slippery and my crampons had little use.  I was surprised at how steep the face was; this was one situation where the face was steeper than it looked.  About halfway up the face, I started feeling uncomfortable so I moved on to the rock, took off my crampons, and scrambled the rest of the way up.  I made it to the gentle part of the ridge and strolled to the summit.  I was a bit worried because I didn’t know how I was going to get down. The face had snow all over it and was going to be a lot looser by this time.  I decided to attempt the ridge and then head for the high pass between Pitkin and Booth Lakes and then hike down to Pitkin Lake and back to camp.

The first part of the ridge was great – easy hiking, great views.  Pretty soon I was at the beginning of a long series of tall gendarmes.   Since I was alone, I decided that I would be taking the easiest route and NOT take the direct route right over the top of the ridge, so I picked a fairly complex route through the large towers, staying almost exclusively on the west (left) side.  The ridge was very typical Gore: steep but stable grassy ledges surrounded by solid cliffy rock.  I had to do a lot of up climbing and down climbing to find the easiest route.  At one point I walked along the top of a bergeschrund while holding on to the solid rock wall above me to traverse over one section.  Eventually, after maybe 4 or 5 sections of rock towers, I arrived at the pass and noted a small trail leading down to Pitkin Lake.  I was able to follow it easily.  It’s a pretty good trail – steep but a hike and not a climb.  I finally arrived at the solitary lake which was still mostly frozen.  I took off my shirt and aired out for a while.  Then I hiked about twenty minutes down the the snowfields and found the trail which took me back to my campsite.  On the way, I finally saw someone – a New Zealander who was hiking up to the lake.

Back at camp, I relaxed a bit, drank some more water and ate some more food.  After an hour or more, I packed up and headed back to the trailhead.  Along the way, I left the trail and bushwacked west looking for an unmarked lake that I had seen from high above.  I picked the perfect spot to leave the trail and found the lake with no problem.  I also left the trail at the first waterfall and moved in close for some waterfall shots.  After that, I went non-stop back to the car.  That was a nice benefit about being alone – I was able to take a couple of side trips without having to have anyone wait on me.  I arrived back at the trailhead which was absolutely baking in the late spring heat.  I felt really tired and hot and spent about twenty minutes stretching before heading back to Denver.

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Dan and I decided to hike this short and sweet peak located on the southern edge of the Gore Range as a conditioning hike for our upcoming trip to Cotopaxi in Ecuador.  We left Denver early one Saturday morning in December and drove to Vail Pass on I-70 where we began the hike.  The day was perfectly clear but the area had recently received a lot of snowfall so we brought our snowshoes.

There’s a big trail leaving the north side of Vail Pass heading north and slightly west.  The trail emerges over a little ridge into a broad valley.  We hiked along the valley for a while and then made our choice of wooded gullies to head up in order to gain the ridge on Uneva.
 
The snow was in great shape and we had no trouble getting up to the ridge.  We also picked a great route.  Although you can’t see Uneva from Vail Pass or the open valley, if you’ve studied the map, you ought to be able to pick the correct gully to go up.  After we broke out of tree line, the snow became hardened by the wind.  This made the hiking a lot easier because we didn’t have to slog through deep snow.  Also, because of the hard snow, there was no danger of avalanche.  Eventually, we arrived on the ridge where we were greeted with this view of Uneva Peak (right).  Uneva is the peak on the far right.  Although the first peak looks to be a lot of unecessary up and down, but actually, you only descend maybe 50 feet at most before you start heading up Uneva. 
 
The top of Uneva was pretty cold.  We only stayed for maybe 45 minutes.  From here we had commanding views all around.  Uneva is a great peak for views as it has 360 degrees of unobstructed views.  To the north (left) you can see the southern peaks of the main section of the Gore Range.  In this photo, you can see Willow Peak, East Thorn, Red Peak, and Demming Mountain.

Uneva is a great winter hike because it is fairly short and doesn’t involve a lot of elevation.  It’s probably about 5 miles round trip with 2000 feet of elevation.
 

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“East Thorn” was another Gore Range peak that I wanted to climb for a long time.  Not only did it look really fun, but it’s also a long way in to Salmon lake which is the makings for a fun, solitary backpack.

“East Thorn” is a prominent but rarely climbed mountain in the Gore Range.  It’s visible from I-70 for a few moments about 2/3rds the way down from the Eisenhower Tunnel to Silverthorne and is unmistakable.  Behind “East Thorn”, to the west along a ridge, is Willow Peak.  Willow is invisible from the most part and an easy climb from the east.   Another peak that we were considering climbing was “Rain Peak” which is on the north side of the cirque above Salmon Lake – opposite of “East Thorn”.

Ken and I opted to climb these peaks over Labor Day weekend and let the other hordes of hikers climb the fourteeners.  We left Saturday morning around 8am with plenty of time so as to arrive at our campsite early and enjoy the rest of the day by the lake.  Typically, Salmon Lake is approached from Rock Creek trailhead or Mesa Cortina trailhead.  Either way, it’s a long hike in from these two spots.  We decided to attempt a little bit of routefinding and parked in the under-construction Eagles Nest development just outside of Silverthorne. Our plan was to find the north branch of Willow Creek and follow it to the intersection with the Gore Range trail.   As we were getting our packs ready, a truck drove up with some representatives from the subdivision.  At first, we expected them to ask us to leave, but the one we talked to was very friendly and told us about a forest service road that was just a couple hundred yards from where we parked.  So, we started hiking from there and had a trail the entire way to the Gore Range trail!
 
The trail was excellent the entire way.  It looked like new signs had recently been placed along the signs.  The “Eagles Nest Wilderness” sign, for instance, still was rough around the routed edges.  Following the Gore Trail, we had occassional glimpses of “East Thorn” through the trees.  Eventually, we came upon the trail that led to “Willow Lakes” which would take us to Salmon Lake.  Willow Lakes is the more popular destination, but Salmon Lake has better access to “East Thorn”.  This trail seemed to go on for a long time and was obviously not the same trail that was denoted on the map.  The actual trail seemed to swing much further north than displayed on the map.  We didn’t know how visible the trail was to Salmon Lake, so we kept our eyes open.  Finally we arrived at yet another brand new sign indicating the way to Salmon Lake.  For an area that definitely isn’t as popular as the fourteeners, this part of the Gore Range was well-marked and the trails were awesome.  We quickly came upon Salmon Lake which was bordered by huge talus blocks on the east side.  At first I didn’t know if we could find a campsite, but the other side of the lake had some really good spots.  We picked the best one which was right on the water.

In an ironic juxtaposition, from our campsite, looking out over the lake, we had a great view of Grays and Torreys (above photo), two of the most popular 14ers in the state.   We wondered how many people were on those peaks this day.  By this time it was only 12:30 or so in the afternoon so we spent some leisure time hanging out by the lake and looking at the part of the route that we were able to see.  Then we gathered up some firewood and improved the fire ring near our campsite.  I decided that I wanted to hike over to Willow Lakes and check them out as well as take some pictures.  Ken decided to stay at camp and gather more wood.

The hiked over to Willow Lakes was really nice.  No wonder that side is more popular because it is absolutely picturesque.  The trail is outstanding and at times travels along steep slopes passing over small creeks and waterfalls.  There are several lakes and tarns in the valley.  At the head of the valley is the “Zodiac Ridge”, a super-steep and serrated ridge with several 4th and 5th class pinnacles named after signs of the zodiac.  There were several people up here actually.  There must have been 6 or 7 different tents and there was a huge multi-family campsite at the uppermost lake who were doing some fishing.  The certainly picked a nice place to fish.  Some of them were catching fish every few minutes it seemed.  I stayed at the upper lake, sitting on a rock near the shore, taking pictures for about thirty minutes.  As the sun dropped behind the ridge, I headed back.  When I got to Upper Willow Creek, I decided to follow it the short distance to the edge of Salmon Lake and then made my way back to camp. Ken had the fire going by the time I was back and we cooked dinner then spent the rest of the evening watching the sunset or stars over the lake and hanging out by the fire.  Before dark some others showed up and set up camp.  We ended up going to bed around 9:30pm.

After a night of solid sleep, we awoke around 6:30 am and began hiking at 7:00.  The other people, Julie and Scott of Silverthorne, left at the same time and were bound for “East Thorn” as well.  Julie talked about how she wanted to climb it because she had a view of it from her window and Scott was the only person that she could find to accompany him.  The first part of the hike climbed up talus to avoid the thick brush and then swung to the rightside along grass of a large talus pile that was obviously formed as part of a glacial moraine.  Soon, however, we could no longer avoid the talus and began the climb up to the high tundra slopes.  We were climbing into a large cirque.  “East Thorn” bordered the south (left) side, Willow was at the head, and “Rain Peak” bordered the north.  The climb up to the gentler slopes above 13,000 feet was actually kind of tough.  There’s lots of 3rd class scrambling (left photo).  At one point, you either need to cross over a cascading creek or continue up along some difficult 3rd class and easy 4th class.  At this point we were ahead of the other two hikers and they opted to begin climbing up a rock-filled gully to the ridge to the west of “East Thorn”.  We stuck with the original plan to climb very high in the cirque and then walk the easy part of the ridge back towards “East Thorn” 

We dumped our packs at around 13,100 feet and began the ridge hike down to the low point saddle on “East Thorn”.  When we arrived, Scott and Julie had just finished climbing the couloir.  We realized that the majority of the climb was going to be on the north side of the peak and we left our jackets up near Willow Peak.   So, being on the north side of the mountain and out of the sun, it was a little chilly so we kept moving to stay warm.  We started our way up the peak by climbing some easy 3rd class slopes.  The climb led to a large flat wall that was covered in green and yellow lichen (hereafter called the “Yellow Wall”) that was the base of a prominent initial tower on the climb.   We hiked around the left side of the wall and along some solid slabs and began the second part of the on some slightly harder and steeper, but more solid, 3rd class terrain.   We aimed for a notch on the lefthand side.  Unfortunately, there was nothing but cliffs at the top of the notch.  So, we traversed back a bit then climbed up a steep but solid 4th class section to a ramp system that led to the final pitch.  The final pitch was a lot like the end of Mount Wilson (a thin arete), although it was much shorter.  It was kinda tricky though, but once we were past this short section, it was an easy climb to the summit.  Finally, we stood on top of “East Thorn”, a mountain that I had been planning on doing for at least 2 years now.  The true summit is very small; there’s only room for two.

We stayed on top for about twenty to thirty minutes only taking pictures and taking in the views.  The clouds seemed to be moving in quickly though so we headed down.  We descended a slightly different way (the way that Scott and Julie ascended) so as to avoid the steep 4th class pitch.  This descent was no walk in the park either.  There were a couple of tricky sections.   Below the arete, you descend about 50 feet into a couloir.  The couloir has a hard move in it.  It didn’t take us long to go down though.  We said goodbye Julie and Scott who had decided not to go on to Willow Peak, which Ken and I were doing next.  Ken and I also decided not to attempt “Rain Peak” because the ridge looked really difficult.  I think it could be done without ropes but with some excellent routefinding, but it’s a trip that deserves an entire day. 

The hike up to Willow Peak is a grassy stroll.  The western face however is very very steep.  On top of Willow Peak we found a register.   Apparently, it was the second one to ever be placed there because there was a message written on the register saying something to the effect of “Shame on you for removing this register because it had signatures dating back to the 30′s.”  How exciting that would have been to know that you were standing on a peak that had only had a handful of people on it ever.  Still, it was kind of neat to only count two other hikers on Willow Peak in the year 2000!  This is one of the reasons that I like the Gores so much.

The views from Willow are outstanding and we stayed on top for about forty minutes.   Click here to see the view plus the labels attached to the various peaks.  We then began the very tedious descent back to camp.  Back at camp we rinsed off and refreshed ourselves in the lake then leisurely packed up.  The hike out was a steady downhill and we were able to make it back to the car just under two hours with no problems at all.  This was a great way to finish a really fun backpack and climb.  Hopefully, we can get more quality trips like this in during the fall.
 

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Ken was originally planning on being in California for work all weekend so I had planned on climbing Buffalo Mountain, the southernmost Gore Range peak and an allegedly short and easy hike. It turned out that Ken got home on Saturday night so we met up the next morning and drove out to Buffalo Mountain.  It took as a little reconnoitering to find the trailhead, but not too much.
 
The trail started out by winding through the trees and meadows. Then the trail sorta got lost in the thickening trees and snow. We eventually hooked up with one of the main trails and found a sign that confirmed our sense of direction. We headed for the ruins of the old cabin (actually, we found two so I don’t know what cabin is the correct one – if any) and then ended up hiking past the second cabin. The trail ended quickly (although footprints remained) and the terrain became much more difficult. I suddenly had the sense that we missed a turnoff and suggested that we turn around and go back to the cabin which was only a few minutes behind us. We arrived back at the cabin and had a little to eat while I scouted around. Sure enough, my nose led us in the right direction as I found an elusive trail before the cabin leading up.  

We started heading up and the trail pretty much vanished again. We were hiking along the fringes of what appeared to be an old avalanche path. I figured this was right because I remembered reading in some other trip reports that the trail (when not obstructed by snow) went through this avalanche path. I made a few markers so that we wouldn’t get lost on the way back down.

Eventually, we busted out of treeline and then determined our position. We were off from where I thought we were but we quickly established exactly where we were. We were on the northern shoulder of the mountain. We continued up a long snow slope. Ken was leading and using someone elses tracks fortunately. We had done enough of our own kicking in past trips so it was nice to resuse some. It didn’t take us long to arrive on top. We had great views of Red Peak, Demming Mountain, and Snow Peak. We could only see the tip top of East Thorn but it looked awesome.  
 
I wanted to continue hiking to the other summit along the thin ridge. Ken was a little reluctant again but quickly got excited when we started scrambling. We made it over to the top without any trouble. There was only one spot that was kind of tricky but it didn’t exceed 3rd class. A lot of people call the ridge exposed but it didn’t feel exposed at all. It was really pretty easy. We took pictures at the other end then headed back where we took a true summit photo. We met some other climbers (a guy and girl) and discussed the climbing of East Thorn.  They suggested a couple of “alternate” trailheads for us to try, one of them was one that I was considering. They headed down and we quickly followed. We were ready for a good glissade. From what we could tell from climbing up it would be a good one. 

Indeed, Buffalo Mountain has unquestionably the best glissade of all time. It was much better (faster and longer) than Castle Peak. We basically glissaded from the summit down to the huge run that led into the trees. Before the second run, we rested a bit. Then we were off. Ken, as usual, took off first flying down the mountain. Then I followed. It was awesome, lots of control and very very fast. Ken stopped before going into the trees but I was having so much fun that I continued. (I nearly ran into Ken as I passed him) I was still flying through the trees, reminiscent of the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi. I must have glissaded another 400 feet before I finally stopped. I turned around and saw Ken zooming down towards me. We had picked such a perfect route through the trees. Unbelievable. We found all our landmarks on the way out so we made it back with no problems.  

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