Colorado 14'er bagging: June 24th 2007

Another 6am start sees us walking up the Lilly Lake trail, which turns out to be a pleasant way to sleep walk through the morning while waiting for the caffeine to kick in. All to soon we leave the well graded trail and soon find ourselves trying to cross Huerfano Creek. Once again my stream crossing skills let me down and I end up with one flooded boot.

We follow a climbers trail past talus slopes and through trees, occasionally loosing the route in snow patches and regaining it soon after. The trail then turns to follow a side stream where we finally break out of the tree line and trudge through the still mostly-solid snow.

Once again my route finding seems a little off as I take us too high too soon and we scramble over and around huge boulders before spotting the trail below us. We take a break so I can wring a half cup of water out of each sock and another climber approaches. Johnny had made the same mistake we had so we agreed to climb up together and set out to traverse over to the real trail without loosing much of of our hard won elevation.

As we are crossing a snow field, Johnny begins telling a story of a friend who injured himself on a glissade down a similar snow field. I try to ignore the story as we hit bare ground and begin gaining more elevation again.

Finally we reach the ridge crest where we get a clear view of Lindsey's northwest ridge, our chosen route. I'm able to pick out the class 4 crux section, and the rest of the ridge should be an easy 3rd class scramble. The climbing turns out to be fun as we work our way toward the summit and are constantly entertained by the views to the west of Mt Blanca and Ellingwood Point, our next two objectives.

The knife edge section of the ridge immediately proceeds the crux and the climbing here is simple but very exposed. Once we've all gathered in a safe spot, Helen and I don our helmets and one by one we tackle the crux by following a gully to the left then exiting it further left before it becomes overhanging. That was certainly easier than the off-route climbing we got into the day before, I think to myself.

The rest of the route is pretty straight forward and we soon find ourselves looking a pretty flat ridge walk between us on the true summit. Three other climbers are resting there when we arrive and we take pictures for each other with great views in all directions, including the Crestone Peaks and Great Sand Dunes to the north. We're all surprised by a solo female climber who fairly comes running up the route.

After chatting and sharing food, the first three climbers headed down the NW Face route, which is renowned for its loose rock and snow. Since we hadn't brought ice axes the rest of us decided to descend the same way we came up - via the NW Ridge. Unfortunately, I got out too far ahead of Helen and when I looked back she had started down the trail onto the face. She, Johnny and Melissa worked their way across the face toward me, while I dropped down off the ridge to meet up with them again. They had one snow field to cross, which at least had steps from the first 3 climbers, but once again I found myself having to watch Helen negotiate a tough situation without being able to do anything to help.

I was finally able to exhale when she reached the dry spot I was standing on. We agreed to try and traverse across the face towards the ridge and Johnny looked determined to follow us. I looked back after setting off and noticed Melissa continuing to descend the face - I wished her luck. Later, I heard from the other climbers that she'd caught up with them and then sprinted down the ankle-twisting trail back to the trailhead.

Helen, Johnny and I found ourselves carefully routefinding across the face doing much 4th class traversing, trying to avoid anything really loose or too steep. Finally, I was relieved when we reached the ridge just below the crux and we would get to repeat the Knife Edge section. Helen said something about taking her time, and Johnny thought it wise to tell a story about a sister who was injured by rushing through some similar climbing. The story may not have had the effect Johnny was hoping for, as Helen tried to tune him out and concentrate on the task at hand.

My Camelbak tube had pulled out of the bladder near the summit so I was low on water and rushing ahead to get to the melt water streams below. I don't remember much more than hearing a distant conversation about behavior training for dogs as I was drawn toward the flowing streams. All three of us took a long break by the creeks, then at last pushed on across the valley's snow patches and back to the climber's trail.

Our creek crossing on the way down was looking more enticing than it had in the cool morning, so both Helen and I removed our boots and waded across. Along with reaching the summit, and returning safely to the Northwest Ridge, it was one of the highlights of the day. Ah, simple pleasures.

Back at the trailhead we said goodbye to Johnny and the other climbers then drove around the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo range. Near the Great Sand Dunes we found a campsite at Colorado's San Luis State Park in the middle of the huge San Luis valley surrounded by cactus and sage brush and distant peaks. We found another use for our ice axes by driving our tent stakes into the rocky ground with the adze, then prepared dinner beneath the useful wind breaks.

The 360 degree views really came into its own at sunset, when we were treated to amazing colors in all directions: red arches of clouds over Blanca Peak, purples above the Dunes, and an ever-changing light show in the western sky.