14,003 Winfield, Colorado Saturday, October 29, 1994
My normal hiking partner Bob Broeking normally writes these reports for us, but he decided to stay home with the wife and kids for some darn reason. So I get a chance to write one for a change. (Actually, Bob had climbed this peak earlier this summer when I was home recuperating from some minor surgery). Anyway..
Denise Snow, a friend of Bob's (mostly) asked me if I'd like to climb Huron with her as we both hadn't done it yet. I was a little concerned about climbing a 14'er this late in the season but agreed. Bob, Denise, and I had climbed Mt. Arkansas the week before (13,785'?) and the snow wasn't bad at all so we decided to give it a try. We were just a little concerned that two climbers had died near Missouri a few weeks prior, and that mountain is just a few miles due east of where we were going. Oh well... This would mark Denise's halfway point in the quest to climb all 54 Colorado 14'ers, and my 33'rd.
The weather forecast was for a nasty cold front to come through the area on Friday evening. I don't mind the cold too much but I don't like it REAL cold. Saturday morning I checked the thermometer at my house at 5AM and it read almost 40F. Not bad, as I live at 7600'. Left the house and drove over to pick up Denise who lives at around 9000+'. The bank thermometer displayed 22F while driving through Woodland Park (8500') so I was getting a little concerned. However, it was warmer in Divide for some reason, even though it's higher in elevation. Of course I had to make the obligitory stop at the Donut Mill in Woodland Park. Wouldn't be a proper mountain day w/o the essentials..!
We arrived at the trailhead near Winfield at 8:30AM. Elevation here is around 10,300 or so. Weather was sunny and it was feeling pretty warm. The day was looking better already. There was hardly any snow on the ground so we decided to leave the snowshoes in the truck. Kind of surprised as there were only two other trucks at the TH... Guess we're kind of in-between seasons. Not enough snow for the X-Country skiiers, and yet enough up high to keep the hikers at home. Or maybe it was the big CU - Nebraska game that started at 10AM... We reviewed several of the guide books, checked our quads and Maps Illustrated, agreed on an approach, and headed up the trail. Note: If one could get past a nasty 200' section of ice on the double-track road you could easily drive the next mile to the wilderness boundary. We weren't willing to try the short stretch of icy road as it was on a 10% incline. Others had definitely been up the road though.
There are several ways to climb Mt. Huron. One is from the east via Cloyses Lake which we discarded. The next two can be done from the trail we were hiking up. The first is the "Huron Trail" (as marked on a sign along the track we were hiking) and there is a sign right next to the trail indicating where to turn left. This is located shortly after you pass into the wilderness area and past the gate. I believe Bob had taken this way. The newest 14'er book out, The Dawson Series, suggests a third possibility. That is continuing on the initial track until you are more or less SW of Huron and them climbing up to the NE. Denise originally wanted to do the Huron Trail but I wasn't that excited about hoofing it up through all those trees. We checked our maps, discussed, and decided to continue on the original track for a while longer to see what came along. If nothing looked good, we'd come back to the trail and start there. The track that we were walking on was very gradual all the way from the TH to the start of the Huron Trail turnoff. We gained maybe 400' or so. It took us about 1:15 to go from TH to this 1st turnoff. We continued on and the track meanders more SE after a while. A great view of the Three Apostles can be had by continuing this way. Ahead on the left we saw a wide, boulder-strewn and grassy gully/ravine leading up to the ridge below what we though was Huron (we were right). We could not see Browns Peak from here so we weren't sure we were looking at Huron or Browns (13,500). From other trip reports, this seems to be a common concern.
We decided to try this approach rather than continuing further south and taking the approach Dawson suggested (Route 1.5.1). As John Viemann says on that PBS show Trailside: "Make Your Own Adventure". We left the dual track at 10,800' and proceeded directly west up the gully. It looked pretty steep and had lots of rocks and boulders strewns all about, yet was entirely clear of snow. Nice. Also, several grassy stretches in the middle looked like good places to rest. At this point we still had 3200' of vertical to do. Time to start grunting under the weight of winter packs. There really is no trail here but you could tell others had gone this way. We slogged it up on rocks, then along the edge, and then on the grass. After a while the footing become more dirt than anything with rocks around us. Getting a good foothold was a problem in some spots and it was fairly steep (> 45%) (guessing on this).
At around 12,400' or so I got caught in a very small rock slide (very small) and ended up with a few heavy rocks pressing down on my right foot. It was definitely caught. Denise was about 25' ahead and came down to help. We carefully managed to clear a few smaller rocks and then lifted a 100-125 lb sample off of my foot. The point of the rock had pressed into the toe of my newish mountaineering-weight Vasque's and left a 1.5" indentation there (Later that evening I was forced to remove the toe nails of the big toe and it's closest neighbor, but that's another fun story). If I had been wearing my Sundowners I'd really have been hurting. But a comfortable 3mm of new leather separated me from that nasty rock from hell.
We took a rest stop at around 12,600' as I was getting pooped out. As usual, Denise is the little powerhouse that just keeps going like the Energizer Bunny (tm). She manages to eat, drink, and hike all at the same time so rest stops are meaningless. I actually like to rest while sitting, drinking, and eating. We found a nice rock to sit behind and rested. We could see a ridge above us that we estimated to be at around 13,000 to 13,200. We continued our way up and the footing got better. We were out of the dirt and more onto rock/boulder hopping, which we both liked. No more slipping. Reached the ridge and realized we were climbing the right mountain. We could see Browns Peak off in the distance and the Huron Trail was easy to distinguish also. Still hadn't seen anyone else. The views of the Three Apostles (three small mountains named for ???) were unbelievable. Some real snow was already accumulating there and also in the two peaks to the west of us (forgot their names already).
At this point we were finally into the snow as we had crossed over the ridge and were more on the NE side of the ridge where the sun doesn't get as much exposure. The snow was between ankle and knee deep. Started moving up and across this ridge in a SE direction towards the summit. At about 13,400' we decided to don our wind shells as the wind was really picking up as we were again near the ridge itself. We then decided to traverse a small 300 yard snowfield to reach a more stable climbing place and get out of the wind. Had to dig out the ice axes at this point due to the exposure of sliding down the hill. We exited the snow field at about 13,500'. We saw two hikers just at the summit (or what we thought was the summit). They must have come up the Huron Trail as we could see fresh tracks down in the valley below. I personally like seeing other human beings on days when you're way up on a mountain and a long way from the car, but that's just me.
Denise was climbing along at a good pace and for a while we were at equal heights but on parallel tracks about 100' apart. Near the top I moved more to the E and followed her up to the summit, or what we though was the summit. Denise was up and I followed about a minute or so later. We were obviously not on the summit and I said the F-word again! From where we were it looked as if the summit was at least 300-400' higher and about 1/4 to 1/2 mile to the SSW around a bend in the ridge. My altimeter watch read 13,880' at this point so I was a little confused. Normally my watch is right on. We were disappointed and also a little (just a little) concerned. It was now 1:55PM and we had been climbing for a little over 5 hours. The hikers who had been ahead of us were already making their way down the valley. We guess-timated that it would get dark at about 6PM, and that it would take us about 1 hour to get to the summit and back to the point where we were now. That would make it 3PM or so and would allow just 3 hours or so till dark for us to reach the car. That seemed to us like we were cutting it a bit close so we decided to kick in the afterburners and charged up the hill (tired as we were).
For some strange reason that neither Denise or I can explain, we reached the summit in about 15 minutes at 2:10PM. My altimeter read exactly 14,000' (Huron is 14,003). There was a summit register (snow and ice encased almost) and an American flag. First time I've seen a flag at the summit. We both thought we were a little bonkers as it was obvious we had been a lot closer to the summit than it looked. We both felt fine, nothing funny going on, but we were at a loss to explain why we thought the summit was so far. It had taken us 5:25 to reach the summit) We signed the register and headed down. Got back to the original point and looked again at the summit. Same thing, it looked a long way away. Weird. Maybe it was a combination of the sun (just about in our eyes at this point in the afternoon), the tiredness from hiking, etc.. Or maybe it was some sort of illusion. This had never happened to either of us before... I was quite tired from the hike as our path up the mountain had definitely been a challenging one. Denise was less tired (I think) but she looked a little worn.
We decided to follow the trail of the other hikers (a husband and wife from Colorado had been the only folks that day to sign the register ahead of us) down the valley along a much easier looking path. Instead of heading W down the gully we came up, you head almost N down through the valley with a great view of Browns Peak off to the right (East). It looked like it would be fun to come back in the summer and climb from the same TH up Brown's NW ridge to the summit of Browns and then across the gentle saddle and ridge up to the top of Huron. Denise and I set a good pace and really enjoyed the totally sunny and warm weather. We could more or less follow the tracks in the snow of the other folks. Followed this trail as it zig-zagged down from the ridge to the flats down to the treeline along some small cliffs. The trail is excellent at this point and cairns mark the trail. There was enough snow that we didn't want to have to break fresh trails if we didn't have to, but we did a little. As the trail reaches timberline it switches back and forth down a fairly steep ridge. I'd guess we dropped 1200' in less than 1/2 mile on the edge of a ridge. No exposure, just steep and a little muddy now in the afternoon sun. Denise noted that the trail could sure use some maintenance at this point. I agree. Just before reaching the original dual track we had hiked up (we could see it below) the trail just sort of disappeared in different directions with footprints in the snow going everywhere. We just picked a path and made our own way down till we hit the track. From there it was less than one hour back to the car. Arrived back at car at 4:30PM. Descent time was a short 2:20 or so.
Total elapsed time was 7:45. Elevation gain was a little over 3700' for the day. During the summer I'd done a LOT more elevation gain in one day without feeling as tired as I did that day. Weird. Total distance was somewhere between 9 and 10 miles. Felt more like 10 or so to both of us. I would recommend sticking to the marked Huron Trail if you'd like to make an easier hike. I'd guess you could eliminate at least an hour or so by doing it that way, but you'll miss out on the great views to the south.
I apologize for the length of this report. I tend to ramble and put in too much detail as I go. Bob and I are hiking West Spanish Peak (13,600') this Sunday with a group from the CMC so I'm sure we can expect a report from Bob then. Looks like it should be some good snowshoe practice on the approach!
( ___ )-----------------------------------------------------------( ___ ) | / | Tom Vervaeke Email | \ | | / | Hewlett Packard Co. Phone:3 | \ | | / | Colorado Springs, CO. | \ | | / | | \ |___| I love animals. They taste delicious. |___| (_____)-----------------------------------------------------------(_____)