Hiking & Climbing StoriesDrift Peak Attempt 11/19/05
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Since the big trip to the Tetons over Labor Day my high mountain adventures had tapered off as I focused on rock climbing in the Flatirons above Boulder. However, with the weekend's weather forecast looking a little chilly for rock climbing I decided to team up with a bunch of my summitpost.org buddies for a snowshoeing trek to the summit of Drift Peak - a centennial thirteener in the Tenmile Range.
I picked up Nelson on the way out of Fort Collins and a little after 5:00am we were cruising down I-25 on the way to our rendezvous with Fabio and Peter who were coming from Boulder. We met Fabio and Peter at the park-and-ride at the I-70 Morrison exit. As we began to transfer gear from my car into Fabio's I was greeted with an ominous site - my backpack was steaming. This could mean only one thing - my hydration reservoir had leaked and spilled hot tea all over my kit (including my stocking cap, gloves, fleece, and shell). Doh! I quickly righted my pack and explored the damage. My hat and gloves had escaped a soaking but my fleece and shell were both pretty damp. The rest of the crew shrugged it off and said they could loan me water to replace what had been spilt and that my shell and fleece would probably dry off during the remainder of the drive. I spread my shell out in the back of the car and draped my fleece over my lap and hoped they were right as we sped up I-70 into the mountains.
The early season skier traffic moved smoothly and soon we were making our way toward Freemont Pass on Highway 91. We pulled off the highway onto the shoulder at Clinton Reservoir where we met a couple more summitpost.org buddies Charles and Amy along with their dog Luna. The typical approach to Drift Peak is via Mayflower Gulch - the drainage north of Clinton Reservoir on the north side of Gold Hill. However, as we drove past we observed that the parking lot had not been plowed and there was nowhere to park. Clinton Reservoir however had a nice little spot to park and this starting point wouldn't change our plans significantly. I mooched a bottle of water from Nelson and another bottle from Charles and Amy as we strapped on snowshoes and got our gear in order. My fleece had mostly dried and I donned it as we set off on our hike. I had lucked out! By the time we'd gotten ourselves sorted out and hit the trail it was nearly 9:00am.
The first bit of our trek required us to gain Drift Peak's long western ridge named Villa Ridge after Henry Villa who was killed by an avalanche on the ridge in December 1990. This entailed a bit of arduous snowshoeing up steep slopes and deep, fresh powder. We each took turns breaking trail, switching every couple hundred meters. This was Nelson's first significant trip into the high country since Fabio, Peter, and I had witnessed his narrow escape from disaster when he was swept down Mount Toll's Southeast Face in a May avalanche. Although he had managed to stumble away from the avalanche with his life, he had suffered a nasty posterior shoulder dislocation. Surgery and months of intensive physical therapy seemed to be paying off as he broke trail like a champ.
After an hour or so of slogging uphill through the forest, the trees gradually began to thin and we popped out into a meadow below Gold Hill. We enjoyed views of Bartlett Mountain to the south, Jacque Peak to the west, and the centennial thirteeners towering above us to the east: Pacific Peak, Atlantic, Peak, Fletcher Mountain, and Drift Peak. After the steep ascent onto the ridge the next section of the trek would be easy. This lower section of the ridge was nearly flat - Gold Hill is a mere bump in the ridge. After pausing to snap a bunch of photos and grab a quick snack we set off. Seemingly without effort we made our way along the ridge following its mild undulations across a beautiful blanket of pure, untrammeled, white snow dotted by the occasional pine tree. By this time Charles, Amy, and Luna had fallen far behind. Peter decided to wait for them and find out what was up while the rest of us pressed on.
From the trailhead at Clinton Reservoir the conditions among the mountaintops did not look pleasant - clouds enshrouded the summits and it appeared that high winds were kicking up wicked spindrift. However, as we drew nearer the steeper sections of Villa Ridge the clouds began to lift and the wind seemed to die down a little. This encouraged us as we rapidly drew near the first substantial challenge of the day - a relatively steep slope rising dramatically out of the flat portion of the ridge. At the base of the slope we began to experience the brunt of the wind blowing out of the north and we paused to toss on more layers of clothing. For me this was my overmitts and balaclava - the core of my body was still relatively warm but my ears, face, and hands were cooling off rapidly in the wind. By this time Peter had caught up with us and relayed that Charles and Amy had decided that they wouldn't attempt to join us further on the ascent. Amy wasn't feeling that great and they didn't think Luna would be able to keep warm higher on the ridge, exposed to the gusty winds.
Cozy in our warm clothes we tackled the steep slope with Peter leading the way while I brought up the rear. The going was much more difficult here - the terrain consisted of steep, loose talus covered by two-to-three feet of fresh powder. It's always hard to gauge slope without a slope meter (with the tendency always to over estimate) but Nelson and I suspected that the steepest parts where 35-40 degrees. Peter clawed his way up and the rest of us did our best to follow. Fabio and I had brought crampons and axes along and we debated switching from snowshoes to crampons (the axes would have been useless in the light powder). The crampons would have given us better traction on the talus, but on the other hand we would have lost all the floatation the snowshoes offered. In the end we decided it was six of one, and a half dozen of the other, so we stuck with the snowshoes. Progress was also hindered by the strong winds that buffeted us all the way up the ridge.
When we finally topped out above that initial headwall we were all pretty tuckered out and seriously doubted we could reach the summit. It was starting to get late - closing in on one o'clock. It looked like we were still at least two hours from the summit. At our current rate of progress that would put us out well after dark. The next couple hundred meters looked much easier than the steep section we'd just completed so we opted to continue onward to the top of a bulge ahead and re-evaluate once there. I didn't like the idea of failing to summit - during the last couple years of peakbagging I had only been turned back by two mountains: Mount Wister in Grand Tetons National Park due to bad route beta and Storm Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park due to conditions not unlike what we were experiencing on Drift Peak. I didn't want to add another peak to this list so I pushed onward. I covered a flat hundred meters of ground without much effort and then began to ascend the bulge. Here I encountered similar terrain to what we had struggled up earlier and arrived on top of the bulge huffing, puffing, and discouraged. I turned my back the wind and waited for the rest of the crew to join me.
We held a quick conference and it was clear that the only intelligent option was to admit defeat and turn back. The terrain wasn't getting any easier, the weather wasn't getting any warmer, and we weren't getting any stronger. We could have kept at it for another hour but what was the point? We weren't going to reach the summit so why make the day into an epic? Besides, a cold beer and a hot meal were sounding really good at this point. The mountain wasn't going anywhere and we could always come back another day - perhaps even later this winter when the deep powder we were floundering through had time to consolidate into firmer snow.
With the decision to retreat made we snapped more photos and grabbed a snack. I also threw on my shell. Without the intense, body-heat-generating effort of going uphill I'd need it to keep warm during the descent. As it turned out, the descent down the steeper sections of the ridge was just as tricky as the ascent. Traction was difficult to obtain and we ended up downclimbing much of it by facing inward toward the slope and kicking steps into the slope with our snowshoes. At one point we toyed with the idea of abandoning the ridge completely and descending directly to the south into Clinton Gulch. In the end several factors dissuaded us. The first was that we couldn't quite see all the way down into the gulch and it was possible that the slope cliffed-out just above the valley floor. The second was that although much of the slope looked like wind-scoured tundra there were a few sections that had accumulated some deeper snow and were possibly avalanche prone. We couldn't let ourselves forget Nelson's ordeal on Mount Toll or the way the ridge got its name (after a man who'd been killed by an avalanche here). In the end we decided to play it safe and stick with the devil we knew instead of the one we didn't.
When we'd finally made it down below the initial steep section and flatter ground we took a break to breathe a sigh of relief and have another snack. The clouds had continued to lift throughout the day and now we had an excellent view of Atlantic Peak, Fletcher Mountain, and their connecting ridge. I'm a hobbyist shutter-bug, but Nelson and Fabio are a bit more serious photographers. We were all awed with the impressive lighting on the jagged ridge that connects Atlantic and Fletcher. The rocky, serrated teeth of the ridge really stood out against the intense blue of the sky and the dazzling white of the fresh snow. We stood transfixed by the awesome scenery before the cameras came out and the photo taking commenced.
At this point in the afternoon we could see a couple of groups of skiers heading our way up the ridge as well as several sets of skiers down below in Mayflower Gulch. It's easy to understand why this area is such a popular destination for winter backcountry enthusiasts. After this final snack break we headed down for the car with thoughts of a post-adventure meal filling our heads.
Since the point where we'd turned around up on Villa Ridge we'd been in contact with Charles and Amy via radio and they informed us that from the middle of the flat ridge they had dropped down to the south directly to Clinton Reservoir. They said that the terrain was very similar to what we'd come up to gain the ridge. This sounded good and it would be nice to see some fresh scenery. When we found their tracks leading down the south side of the ridge we followed them through the forest and occasional meadow until we reached the shore of Clinton Reservoir. En route our path took us past an old, rusting, Chevy pickup crashed into a tree. We found parking stickers on it from the mid '80s so it couldn't have been there more than 20 years. We speculated on why and how it had gotten there - it seemed like a very odd place to find an abandoned vehicle.
By the time we got down to the reservoir I was pretty well tuckered out. Although we had covered less than 6 miles and 1,600 vertical feet I was whipped. I was tempted to get out onto the frozen surface of the reservoir and walk across that back to the car. However, a few tentative steps on the ice resulted in numerous creaking and cracking sounds that made me think twice. I opted for safe instead of sorry, and slugged my way through the snow along the shore back to the car with the rest of the gang. We arrived back at the car near 3:00pm where Charles, Amy, and Luna were waiting for us. I felt a little embarrassed to be so tired after a mere six hours, six miles, and 1,600 vertical feet but at least I wasn't the only one who was worn out. We all agreed that we had severely underestimated the mountain and overestimated ourselves.
Oh well - it was beer and Mexican food time - the perfect complement to a hard day out in the hills! We found a nice little place on the outskirts of Frisco and whiled away an hour or two relaxing and discussing mountain adventures past and future. Though we didn't summit, it was still a great day out in the hills with good friends. Hopefully before the next adventure I can whip myself into better shape and be more prepared for whatever the mountains have to offer. |
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