(6/1/96) Tabeguache - 14,155 feet
Looking for a nice, easy 14er to start out the year, I picked the "Southwest Ridge II" (6.0 miles, 3700 ft) ascent out of Roach. It looked good on paper: add 970 feet to the Guanella Pass trailhead route up Bierstadt and you have this route up Tabeguache.
The reality was much harder. I spent 11 HOURS getting up Tabeguache and back down again. For comparison, another party, perhaps in better shape, recorded a time of 8 hours in
The trailhead is marked by a battered sign warning that it takes 12 hours of daylight to hike to Shavano and back and not to descend into McCoy gulch.
The route up can be divided into 3 parts. First there is a trail that meanders up the hillside through the woods and gets you more or less to the treeline. Then the trail goes northeast up a steep hillside that gets you to the ridge. The ridge continues northeast to point 13936 and from there east to Tabeguache.
I left Denver at 5 AM and driving on 285 was in Buena Vista by 7:40 AM. After breakfast at the truck stop I proceeded to the trailhead on Chaffee County 240. Allow plenty of time for this final 7 mile stretch of very bad road. I started hiking at 9:30 AM.
Getting up the hillside was time-consuming and tedious due to the condition of the trail which was all loose dirt and pebbles. Slipping back down was a continual hazard.
The ridge: this is the kind of climbing I enjoy most, but fatigue was taking its toll and where possible I took shortcuts, notably the "vague trail angling northeast under Point 13936". Both the NE/SW and E/W ridges are broken up by a series of camel-humps. Dramatic cliffs fall away to the north of the E/W ridge connecting Point 13936 and Tabeguache. There is a good view of Antero to the north and I noted what looked like a road going most of the way up Antero.
Just short of the summit I encountered a party of two who said they had followed me up the hillside. Somehow they had passed me going over the top of Point 13936 while I detoured around. They asked about the trail bypassing Point 13936.
I reached the summit at 3:50-- over 6 hours!! My el cheapo wristwatch was displaying "14" followed by an upside-down "A" but the clock build in to m
Heeding the dire warnings from Roach I wearily retraced my steps resisting the temptation to drop down into McCoy gulch.
Descending the dusty hillside I encountered a party of four heading up. This was odd considering there was about 1 hour of daylight left, but they said they were going to hike by moonlight.
It was 8:30 and nearly dark as I finished back at the trailhead.
The weather was beautiful all day long. Mostly the sun was shining with occasionally a few clouds. My thermometer read 55 F at the summit. The absence of snow was remarkable for this time of year-- there were only a few scattered patches. Though we had bad weather over Memorial Day weekend, I suspect it would have been possible to do this climb 3 or 4 weeks earlier. -
Larry Mulcahy GCS d H s !g p1 au-- a w+++ v--- C++ U+ P++ L++ 3 E+ N++ K W--- M-- V-- po--- Y+ t 5++ j- R G? tv b++ D++ B--- e+++ u h+ f? r* n--- !y The Failed Clinton Presidency: day 1259, 203 days to go