Mike and I had been planning a major Gore Range trip this weekend but our plans were dramatically changed when an early and very strong snowstorm moved through the state.  However, we decided to take a much easier trip on Sunday where we could do a bit of scouting on our postponed trip.  We decided to climb “Piney Bristles” which is a small, rocky point along the western ridge bordering Upper Piney Valley.  From the opposite side of the valley, “Piney Bristles” is a pretty impressive little peak and although it’s an easy peak to climb, that doesn’t degrade from enjoyment of climbing it and the amazing views that it affords.

We left Denver very late, around 9:30.  We drove down Red Sandstone Road and then took a right-hand turn on Lost Lake which is a bit bumpy but nevertheless a well-maintained road.  We drove maybe two or three miles to a sharp switchback in the road where we began our hike.  There was a faint logging road which we followed for a while, although we weren’t on it very long.  For the most part, we just used our routefinding and navigation noses to find our ways to an open meadow where we could see the ridge which we were heading for.
 
In some parts of the woods, we did see footprints so there surprisingly must have been another hiker up here today or at the earliest, yesterday afternoon.  After following through the meadow, we headed for hilly ridge coming off the main ridge which we headed up.  The climb was steep and we slogged up the slope for quite a while until the moment when we opened up onto an open talus area which lead to a 11,754 foot point along the ridge where we could see the rest of our route.  We could see Piney Bristles to the north, but we would have to head slightly south to connect with the main part of the ridge then head back north passing several points until attaining the summit.  We dropped down a short slope covered in deep snow then emerged onto a 3rd class ridge that was partially mixed with trees; we were still below treeline.  The ridge was 2nd class the rest of the way and was mostly a rock hop along talus, and avoiding dense trees.  There was a very pleasant hike through a high meadow before arriving at the base of the short rocky summit of “Piney Bristles”.

The climb to the summit is a short, perhaps only 100 foot, 3rd class scramble.  Once on top, Mike took out his binoculars and we surveyed Ripsaw Ridge, opposite of the valley.  I also took several pictures of the surrounding peaks and the valley (below).
 
Ripsaw Ridge towers three thousand feet over Upper Piney Valley.  The ridge’s highpoints (Peaks “C”, “D”, “E”, “F”, “G”, and “H”) are at about 13,200 feet and the valley is at about 10,200.  The ridge does indeed look like an impenetrable wall.  The valley is very gentle and rises very slowly over about three miles.  All the views we had were perfect.  The weather was perfect – very little wind, lots of sun, and zero haze.

After spending about an hour on the top and studying various parts of the ridge and access points, we headed down.  We climbed back over the ridge and climbed up the short snow slope to the point where we accessed the main part of the ridge (below).  However, instead of heading back towards Point 11,754, we headed further south.  By heading this way we would be able to descend a wide grassy gentle bowl and, at the same time, hook back up with the creek that we used to help us navigate in the opposite direction.
 
Because we started hiking so late, it was getting pretty late (about 5:30) in the afternoon and the sun was already starting to set some.  However, we thought about climbing an unnamed 12er on the opposite side of the bowl.  Mike decided that he wanted to just enjoy the basin beneath the peak but suggested I run up it real quick and take some pictures.  So, I headed up.  So I headed back up and got back on the ridge and the remainder of the climb consisted of talus covered in slick fall snow.  Normally, these sorts of conditions make for much slipping and sliding but in reality, it wasn’t bad at all.  I zoomed up the 700 feet to the summit and arrived up at the top in only 24 minutes.  From here I had great views of the southern part of “Ripsaw Ridge” as well as excellent, up-close views of “The Spider”.
 
(Right) Here’s the nice view of the ridge from the top of the summit.  The relief of the ridge is much more obvious from this side.  The setting sun helps out a lot too.

I took several shots from the top of this summit.  To the west was another summit.  I couldn’t really tell if it was any higher than the one I was standing on.  It looked a tad higher so I strolled along a wide talus ridge covered in new snow to the second summit which indeed appeared to be higher.  There was a third summit even further to the west but it was shorter and wouldn’t afford better views AND it was getting late in the day so I didn’t bother going.  Since the views weren’t as good from this summit, I headed back to the first.
 
I didn’t stay on top much longer.  The sun was starting to go down and we didn’t have the luxury of a trail to hike out on so I headed back down to the bowl where Mike was waiting (left).  We headed back out this different drainage.  Before we entered the forest, I paused and took this picture looking back on the little peak I climbed.  We bushwacked through a comfortable forest.  Eventually we ran into something that looked like a rough blazing of a trail.  We followed it for a good while and eventually ended up in the wide meadow with the faint logging road.  We actually found a way to follow the road back all the way to the car.  On the way in, we obviously took a right-hand turn instead of a left-hand turn and that road eventually faded into nothingness but we were still able to make it to the meadow.

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In a way, I was doubting whether I should attempt a climb of Eagles Nest solo.  Eagles Nest, while a long hike, is not really that long but I generally like going with other people.  But, after playing a gig on Friday, I was ready to get out of town and I knew that if I just got in the car and went, I wouldn’t regret it.  I certainly didn’t, but unfortunately, I didn’t leave Denver until a little after 1:30pm.  It took me about two hours to get to the Suprise Trailhead which is at the far north end of the Gore Range.  This is a fee-collecting area ($5) and, along with the Lower Cataract Lake trail, is easily the most popular trailhead in the Eagles Nest wilderness.  The ample parking lot was jam-packed with maybe thirty cars.  I got my stuff ready, paid the fee, signed the register and headed out around 3:30.  On the register, I noted a group of twenty who were at Upper Cataract Lake.  I had originally though I’d climb Eagles Nest from Upper Cataract, but had decided earlier in the day to camp on Dora Mountain.  Seeing a group of this size cemented the idea in my head.  I thought maybe that was some other group’s strategy to ensure that they were alone at the lake!  No matter, Dora Mountain would be awesome, I was sure.

It’s a lot more strenuous and difficult hike to get to Dora Mountain.  From the trailhead, it’s about a 3700 foot climb and you have to bushwack to get to the mountain.  I wasn’t quite sure where I’d leave the trail to begin my bushwack but it looked like the best route was somewhere after Surprise Lake.

The parking lot was really hot and I was anxious to get moving fast and get up to cooler ground.  My overnight pack has gotten much smaller over time and I moved very fast up the moderately steep trail.  Everyone I passed had much bigger packs than I did, so I guess I’m getting pretty good at this.  Anyway, my map unfortunately didn’t have this part of the trail and it felt like I hiked too far southwest.  I started to think that maybe I missed the trail turnoff.  I really wasn’t that worried because the trails are really well documented with signs in this area.  Sure enough, I arrived at the Gore Range trail and turned right and headed for Surprise Lake which is only a couple of minutes past the turnoff.  The lake has lots of lily pads and logs floating in it.  In the distance, you can see Dora Mountain.  I continued on then arrived at the Upper Cataract trail and turned left there.  I thought maybe I could follow one of the creeks to the slopes of Dora Mountain.  I decided not to do that because the forest was quite thick.  I went maybe a half mile more and spotted a very faint trail heading south.  I followed it a bit just to see if it really was a trail.  It wasn’t, but the forest wasn’t quite as thick here.  So, I decided to start bushwacking.  Fortunately, the route was pretty easy for me.  I first found a fairly open, moist area, that lead to a really dense area with a lot of fallen trees.  I was able to see the open slopes of Dora Mountain in front of me.  It didn’t look like much more bushwacking.  I was able to walk along the fallen trunks and make pretty good time.  I then climbed up some very steep slopes for about 200 feet.  The slope began to lessen and I broke out of the trees and had a good view back on the Blue River valley (top picture).  After a while, I was beyond all the trees and hiking along the flat slopes of Dora Mountain.  In the distance, I could make out the two permanent snowfields that are notated on the map.  As I passed above the second snowfield on talus, the most amazing view opened up.  I had arrived at Dora Lake and had unobstructed views of the northern Gore Range peaks.

December 2007 Addition: I just reread my Dora Mountain report and I can’t believe I left out the most satisfying part of this trip: When I first moved to Colorado, I had browsed through a Fielder photo book and was awestruck at one of the pictures of the Gore Range. It didn’t say where, just something like “Sunrise in The Gore Range”. After I climbed Peak “C”, and realized that the Gore Range was the place for me, I looked forward to the day that I would find that view. I studied maps quite a bit and had some ideas where that view was, but Dora Lake wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately, I never found it, until I went on that solo trip. And, I wasn’t even thinking of finding it then. When I crested over that snowfield and small ridge and saw it, I simply dropped my pack in silence and just stared for minutes on end. I think that qualifies as my favorite moment in the Gores. I hope I will return there one day. Perhaps on the trip to Black Peak. After all, I’ve made the climb from the top of the Black Drainage to the slopes along Dora Lake. End December 2007 Addition
 
Once I regained my senses, I was sort of mad at myself for not leaving earlier so I could enjoy the view for a few hours before the sun went down.  As it was, I had maybe an hour or an hour and a half of sunlight.  I set up my camp at the southern end of Dora Lake looking over the vast expanse of the Black Creek valleys.  There were, of course, mountain goats up here.  They were interested in me but never came any closer than about 15 feet or so.  I could easily spook them by moving quickly and I had to run back up to my camp while pumping water and chase them off because they started messing with my stuff.  A month earlier, some goats had chewed through my canvas stove bag and I didn’t want that to happen again.  Fortunately, they didn’t bother my camp me after that.

As the sun went down, I relaxed and read a new screen play written by one of my best friends.  It was a good setting actually; the amazing vistas and glowing eyes of the goats really set the mood for the screenplay.  Anyway, I enjoyed reading for about an hour.  The full moon had begun rising over Peak “O” and illuminated the surface of the Dora Mountain so much that I didn’t need a headlamp (except for reading).  I went to bed fairly early, around 9:30 or 10:00.  I set my alarm for 5:50 because I wanted to take some sunrise shots.  I slept really well but woke up occasionally to the weird noises made by the goats.  They must have wandered all around me all night long.  My alarm went off but it was still dark so I snoozed for another fifteen minutes.  Once I saw daylight, I jumped up and witnessed an amazing sunrise and setting moon.  I took lots of good pictures.   As I took pictures, I ate breakfast and then got ready for my climb of Eagles Nest.  In a way, I didn’t want to go; I could have just stayed here and enjoyed the stunning views.  I headed out around 7:30 and followed broad gentle slopes for maybe a half a mile before beginning the climb up to point 13,099 along Eagles Nest east ridge.

The ridge began to get pretty thin near the top but never too bad.  I had a good straight down to Upper Cataract and Cat lakes.  I didn’t take a picture though because the were both still in shadow.  I arrived at the top of the point and noted that the benchmark read 13,091…so the map was off by 8 feet.
 
The rest of the climb up Eagles Nest was a series of pinnacles.  There was a giant drop between the third and the fourth pinnacle which was the crux of the climb.  I think it pushed 4th class on the 3rd pinnacle.  It’s definitely wise to drop sooner rather than later on this pinnacle.  The north side of the point is entirely 5th class.  

At the notch, I continued staying fairly low on the south side of the Eagles Nest ridge.  I regained the ridge right before the fifth point and enjoyed scrambling up more solid blocks along the ridge.  At first, as I was topping out on the 5th pinnacle, I thought I was on the summit but then I saw I had yet another pinnacle to climb up that was the true summit.
 
I arrived on the top of Eagles Nest a little less than two and a half hours.  It seemed a bit longer though – the climb had it’s moments but a lot of the ridge was tedious.  The views from the top were great, of course.  I found the summit register.  It was completely full so I replaced it with a small pad of paper and even supplied a small pencil.  I ate some food and then headed down to the seventh point which looked to be almost as high as the true summit and took some pictures.  

I wasn’t really looking forward to following this long ridge back to my camp.  I got the idea to drop down into the Black Creek basin and visit Cliff Lake and some of the other tarns that I saw from the top.  It looked like a fairly easy descent into the basin.  I headed down and mostly skidded and slipped down the scree and arrived in this super-remote basin (below).
 
The first thing I did was head down to Cliff Lake to take a short break.  Cliff Lake is absolutely awesome.  There’s a nice grassy shore and the bottom is sandy and very deep.  I hung around Cliff Lake for a while and even took a short swim.  It was so cold when I jumped in that I couldn’t have stayed in for more than a minute.  It felt good drying out in the sun though.  I spent some time taking pictures of various peaks from the lake.  I then decided to drop down a little more and head for some tarns that I spotted from above.  

I had to negotiate a small set of cliffs then arrived at the tarns, where I took more pictures and rested a bit more.  There was absolutely no evidence of any human activity anywhere down in this basin.  I wonder how many people have actually been up in here.  Not many, that’s for sure.
 
After hanging out at the small tarns for a while, I finally headed back up to Dora Mountain.  I spotted my route from below and began the climb back up.  I got up pretty high and wanted to cut over to some more gentle ground but I was cut off by a couloir that was deeply inset with 30 to 40 foot sheer cliffs.  So, I had to continue climbing up.  I ended up climbing straight up to the base of Point 13,099 and then finally was able to walk tundra back to my campsite.  The goats were still hanging out in their spot.  I took a bit of time to walk over to the lake and pump some more water, then headed out for the summit of Dora Mountain.

Dora Mountain is nothing more than a 100 foot rise of talus on the eastern part of the mountain.  From here I had great views of the entire Black Creek drainage and started making mental plans for a backpack to that region.  I also finally took a picture of myself on the summit.  The summit register had been there since 1986 and was maybe signed by fifteen people.  I recognized three Colorado guidebook authors and a CMC member.
 
After about thirty minutes of more relaxing, I headed back to camp.  I sat back down in my little makeshift chair and read some more of the screenplay while finishing up the last morsels of my food supply.  I still had a 6-mile hike out.  I took in some final views, packed up, and went.  

The hike off of Dora Mountain was really pleasant.  I spotted a large group of deer running across the tundra.  I found the spot that I had emerged from the forest and was able to retrace my steps pretty close.  I ended up coming out on the trail at the exact spot that I left it and then really picked up the pace and zoomed out.  I saw no one else on the hike out.  In fact, I hadn’t see a soul since passing Surprise Lake the day before.  Back at the parking lot, there were only three cars.  The sun was just starting to go down; I’d stayed up there longer than I had originally planned because I was enjoying it so much.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to beat that campsite (right).

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A trip to Upper Slate Lake was something I was looking forward to for a couple of years.  Finally, I got the opportunity to go.  I could have easily made the trip solo but I didn’t want to attempt these difficult peaks solo.  So, Ken came along for this trip.  We originally planned this trip for four days but, because of an Ultimate tournament I was involved in, I was really tired and postponed the trip one day.  I figured we could still get in the peaks that I wanted to do, there just wouldn’t be enough time for rest.  Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with us at all this trip.  It was still awesome though.

All the close access points to the Slate Lake area are closed by private property.  So, the shortest way into Upper Slate Lake is about 11 miles…one way.  The trail also undulates quite a bit, and after we’d gained over a thousand feet, we ended up loosing all of it (and more) by the time we turned off from the Gore Range trail onto the Slate Lake trail.  The Slate Lake trail is unmarked but is a western branch at an old cabin along the Gore Range trail.
 
After branching off, the trail heads west through grassy aspen fields.  At this point you can see the two drainages, one for the south branch and one for the main branch of Slate Creek.  Slate Lake sits on the edge of the southern branch and Upper Slate Lake is a little over a mile past Slate Lake in the northern branch.  It’s almost directly under Peak “L”.  Along the way, we had views of an impressive lettered peak, Peak “T”, which rose up like a spearhead along the ridge separating the two branches of the creek.  As the trail moves along the base of the mountains, it winds way around to provide the most gentle ascent to Slate Lake.  The trail is all but gentle though.  It gets pretty rough and steep but is, at least, easy to follow the entire time.  Right after a waterfall is the lake.  We stopped at Slate Lake for a few minutes then headed up to Upper Slate Lake. 

The trail to the upper lake is very rough too.  It took us a little over an hour to arrive.  We got our first view of the rows of peaks around the valley which were often cloud covered.  These were some really impressive looking mountains.
 
I thought about climbing a close peak this afternoon but the weather wasn’t cooperating at all.  It kept raining off and on.  Actually, this was to be a pattern that repeated throughout the entire trip.  We only got one window of opportunity to climb but that too was cut short.   Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves around campsite, occasionally retreating to the tent when the rain would come.  We went to bed with it raining and woke up occasionally to rain.  I woke up around six or so and still heard rain and realized that climbing might not work out for us.  Sure enough, the peaks were completely socked in when we got up around seven.  We waited around and there seemed to be some clearing around 10 am.  So, we packed up and headed to “South America Lake”, so-called because of it’s near perfect resemblance of the continent.  It took us well over an hour, maybe over an hour and a half to arrive at the lake.  The bushwacking was difficult and we came to realize that the best policy is, in short, to stay as low as you can for as long as you can.  The higher ground is so cliffy that you’ll spend lots of time trying to get around them.  The easiest ground is definitely the low ground along the tarns and marshes.

As we started up Peak “Q”, the clouds had moved in again.  Rain was definitely threatening but we decided to go on until we had a definite sign to turn around.  The first part of Peak “Q” involved climbing up a small gully into the upper basin on the peak.  There was still a good amount of snow up in here.  Our plan was to head almost to the ridge and then turn right along a long ramp system that would lead us to just under the summit.  The lower part of the basin consists mostly of large blocks of talus.  The slopes of the peak are pretty solid and are mixed with steep grass and large blocks.

We heard jets from time to time thinking it was initially thunder.  The clouds did not improve and all and were darkening.  We suspected that it was indeed going to rain on us and had a decision to make if we were going to start climbing anything that was 4th class or harder.  Fortunately, everything so far was only 2nd and 3rd class.  When we were still about 800 feet below the summit, however, it happened:  the rain started.  Then it increased.  It soaked all the rocks and everything became slick.  Fortunately, the descent wasn’t hard; but it was frustrating to know that we wouldn’t be able to climb today.
 
The rain lasted for quite a while.  We got back down to “South America Lake” as the rain was beginning to abate.  The sun came out a little bit too and the steep rocky faces on the peaks were all glistening.  We didn’t turn around though and head back, and that was a good thing because the rain came again, this time with hail and a lot harder.  It was a bit of an ordeal to get back to the tent because we ended up going down the opposite side of the drainage and having more troubles with cliffs.  This part wasn’t too fun in the hail!  Finally we made it back.  It continued to rain off and on throughout the day although we were granted a reprieve during the evening.  We both were awakened that night by the biggest rainstorm yet.  Oh well, maybe next time.  The bad thing was that the following morning was absolutely beautiful!  But, we had to head back down.  The good news was that as we were heading down, the clouds moved in again and as we were looking back up the Slate drainage from the Gore Range trail, we saw that the peaks were getting hammered yet again by the monsoon.  It was not meant to be this time.

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