Square Top Mountain Guanella Pass Route Class II 7/1/2001 Up: 2h 5m Down: 1h 10m
This was the culmination of a shitty day. I started out at 6:30 from Castle Rock to climb Argentine,Ê Wilcox, and Square Top. I drove up the Argentine Pass Road without incident until I attempted to cross the lone remaining snowdrift. About halfway across, my truck started sliding sideways towards the precipice. Somehow, a couple small rocks kept it on the road, but I was incredibly stuck. A couple Jeeps were behind me, and they were nice enough to stop and try to pull me out. No luck. I eventually called an offroad tow truck topull me out. Unfortunately, I had to follow him back to Georgetown to pay him. $300 lighter in the wallet, I set back with the intention of getting at least one peak bagged. As I wasn’t about to try the 4X4 slog back up Argentine Pass, I settled on climbing Square Top from Guanella Pass.
I ended up reaching the pass at 2:30 pm, way late to start climbing. The sky looked OK, some clouds, but no thunderheads, and no rumbling in the distance. I quickly bashed through the willows and reached the broad grassy ridge. The route is ridiculously easy to follow as there are no other mountains west of Guanella. I crossed the ridge points mentioned by Garrett and Martin and made the final climb to the summit, or should I say summits. There are about four high points, the last one being the highest by a few feet. I signed the register and noticed a humming sound. Yep, it was static electricity, and yep, it scared the hell out of me. I looked to the southwest and saw a nasty electrical storm quickly headed my way. To make things worse, it started hailing. I grabbed my pack and started an all out sprint for cover. Unfortunately, the closest appreciable safety was in my truck, three miles away. I ran like mad and dove to the ground every time I heard the humming noise.
I finally found some minimal cover under an outcrop at about 13300’ and munched a couple ofÊ Clif Bars. The storm let off a bit, so I started jogging down the ridge. Ridges never seem long until your life is in grave danger. I didn’t hear any more humming, which was a good sign. Nonetheless, I continued a jogging as quickly as I could down to the willows. They actually looked inviting for once. As per usual, I found a trail through the dreaded foliage of death on the way back down, dammit. It leads down to the South Park Trail about 3Ú4 of a mile from the pass. I marked it with a small cairn. It is obviously not necessary to find the trail, but it makes life just a bit more pleasant.
I reached my truck about 5:45 and breathed a great sigh of relief. All in all, the day wasn’t that bad. The icing on the cake...minimal traffic on 285 on the way home.
-Brendog