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| North Star Mountain |
I had to work Friday night closing the store so I was on
minimal sleep when I rose for the day. I
have now decided that I cannot do these long drives for climbs the morning after
a closing shift. The exhaustion took its
toll, so I will stick to more local climbs for those days. I was over to Paul’s place by 6:30am and we
were off.
Getting to the TH of Hoosier Pass is pretty simple and there
are a few ways of going about it. We
chose to take HWY 285 to avoid all of the ski traffic on I70, but by going
either way simply turn off on State HWY 9.
Since we came by the way of HWY 285 we turned north on HWY 9 in Fairplay
and followed the road past the “smallest incorporated town in the U.S.” of Alma before arriving at Hoosier Pass. Don’t worry you won’t miss the pass, there is
a large parking area on the west side of the road and there will probably be a
bunch of cars there already.
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| Mount Lincoln |
As we arrived at Hoosier Pass, there was a good 12-15 vehicles
already there. We geared up and by 8:30
we were ready to start our climb. I must
add that it was frigid cold as any winter excursion should expect. Normally I don’t keep my down vest on for
climbing, it’s more of a warm driving vest, but today I decided to roll with it
on. After our first three minutes on the
trail, we found the sledding hill of sledding hills for the locals. I would rate this hill extreme, and I could hardly
believe kids were up there at 8:30 in the morning hitting the hill hard
already. Maybe it is their warm-up for
the ski hills that don’t open till 9am.
The trail was hard packed snow, so no snowshoes or
microspikes were warranted. The first
1.3 miles follows an old mining road to a small saddle of sorts after a bend in
the road around a large mound to the south.
I think in the summer you can drive a 4WD vehicle to this point saving a
little bit of a road walk. But with only
gaining 500ft and just over a mile, I’m not sure it’s necessary for this peak.
There are a few ways to go about this mountain now that you
have arrived at this mini saddle. There
is a road that wraps around and the conditions went from hard pack to
unconsolidated to sections of dirt. It
just depended on the drifting. We chose
to get off the main road and start on a direct approach of the southeast
ridge. In the distance, maybe a half
hour ahead of us we saw a group of about 7 people and 2 dogs ahead. I think they chose the road, but the best
part about mountains is it’s a “to each their own” type of situation.
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| Quandary Peak |
As we started up the ridge direct the snow conditions were
quite variable. One second the wind
packed snow would be like glacier ice, the next second I would be knee deep in
some crusted powder. Yesterday somebody
had posted a conditions report on 14ers.com for this route, so we trusted their
report. They said no need for snowshoes or
microspikes. After the fact I would
agree, our route snowshoes would have been nice, but only for a short period of
time. Now, if you’re heading up in the
future with the new snow, some 6inches or so, looks like you will need some
flotation.
The wind was pretty unbearable the entirety of the
ridge. Although it was not snowing, we
had plenty of snow blown in our faces, which makes moving upwards
difficult. A time or two we had some
layering adjustments, but there really wasn’t a way to make ourselves comfortable
with the wind. We just kept a slow pace
that ensured we didn’t need to stop; therefore we would not freeze like giant
popsicles. With a group ahead of us we
were at least able to monitor our progress and I think both of us were
satisfied. I think Paul was very happy
with his acclimation since he was up in Michigan for the last few weeks. I’d say he was kicking the mountains butt for
being at such low elevations for so long.
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| Pano Lincoln in Center |
The further we made it up the mountain the more bone
chilling cold it got. We made it to the
sub-summit of 13,400ft which Garmin and Google Earth consider the summit. But, deep down we knew we had a good mile
long ridge walk and a few hundred feet to gain to and from the true
summit. We thought about it for about
two seconds, but once on top of the sub-summit it felt as if the temp dropped
about 30 degrees and the wind picked up about 10mph from what we were
previously experiencing. My fingers went
to straight frozen almost instantly and I could not even feel my face anymore
it was a frozen ice clad mess. I spent
about 30 seconds taking pictures and told Paul I was heading down. The feeling of frozen fingers is never a good
one, I kept shaking them as much as I could to keep the blood flowing. Once off the sub-summit we found a bit of a
wind block and I pulled out my mittens and grabbed some fuel for the way down.
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| Sub Summit |
Winter climbing as we can see has its immense challenges. This time it was the freezing wind, had it
not been for that we would have kept on route to the proper summit. Both of us have no desire to make ourselves
totally uncomfortable and overextend our limits so we had no problem turning
around. In the summer, this hike would
be a breeze, but what fun would it be without a worthy challenge such as a
winter ascent?
After I got feeling back to my fingers we loaded up and
started making our way down the mountain.
I swear that about a half hour after we started down the wind died. I kept telling myself that it was still a
frigid hurricane at the top to make myself feel a little better about turning
back. Either way I think the both of us
had an excellent day on the mountain and were both running on emptied our tanks
at that point.
This is an excellent climb for those wanting to get your
winter snowflakes on any lists you may have.
There is no technical difficulty, just use good judgment with the
weather. I hope to be back this winter;
the views alone are worth the trip.
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| GPS Track |
Date: 12/28/2013
Starting Elevation: 11,533ft
North Star Mountain Sub Summit: 13,442ft
Total Gained Elevation: 1,925ft
Class: 2
Distance: 5.43 miles
Time: 3:30 moving, 1:15 stopped.
Climbing Partner: Paul
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