August 11th, 2009.

While on our two week loop of Southwest Colorado we planned three days around Buena Vista which sits at the foot of several Sawatch 14ers. The two big attractions to staying nearby were the natural hot springs and the peaks. The most well know hot springs are the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs, which is a hot spring and spa resort that seems to lately be on the upswing. We also found that there are nearby cabins that have there own private hot springs at the “Antero Hot Springs” and we decided to stay there. Personally I find it much more relaxing to not have a lot of other folks around and having our own hot spring just outside our cabin was just fantastic and worth it.

Since there is a 4wd road up Baldwin gulch we took the short drive up to it to get a sense of what kind of condition it was in and take a guess at how long it would take us to get to where we wanted to hike from. With Anna being nine years old and my wife not having done any 14ers yet it seemed wise to try to drive up close and leave just the last mile and a half to climb up. So we guessed at 2 hours for the drive and 3 hours for the hike. The weather looked great for us to give it a shot and we decided to head out at a reasonable early time of 7am.

Getting there:
We drove west toward St. Elmo on Chaffee County Road 162 and another 10 miles on the dirt road to reach the signed Baldwin Gulch Jeep Road (also listed as the 277 Road).

You can park here, there are plenty of pull-offs along the road. This is the lower trailhead and its a long way from here. Short, high-clearance 4WD vehicles can drive up the 277 road, our stock 04 Jeep Liberty did fine. Above the river crossing (10,850′), there are dispersed camping spots along the side of the road as it leads to multiple switchbacks up to the saddle. We parked at the saddle and made our way up the ridge line to the top.

I took a chisel-peen hammer to prospect for Aquamarines and I think we actually did find some Garnets. It was a great trek for Chris and Anna to get on top of their first 14er with the added bonus of Gem-Hunting near the summit. If you want to see some of the nicest aquamarines found on Antero, stop at the “Rock Doc” back on US285. We picked up a few carats of Aquamarine there and they have nice examples of the things folks prospect for on Antero.

We Left Boulder at 4 on Saturday and drove to La Plata’s southwest trailhead. We took the Copper exit off of I-70 and turned onto rt 390 about 14 miles north of Buena Vista. Took rt390 the 13+ miles back to the old mining town of Winfield and missed the right turn there (at the historic marker). The liberty handled the pretty rough 4×4 road as we drove to the Huron trailhead before realizing our mistake and going back to the turn off at Winfield for the La Plata trail head. The 4×4 trail was totally free of snow, but running water to cross and some deep ruts and tall boulders to drive around.

At the trailhead we heard some corrupted boom-box Ted Nugent off in the distance and occasional gunfire from at least 3 different weapons so it seemed like a good idea and hike in before camping. The hike from the trailhead follows a creek up through to tree line and after just a mile of hiking up steeply the noise nuisance was no longer in mind. We threw down gear just before tree line ended and agreed we would hit it early as long as the weather was good.

A 3:30am start and followed the trail easily taking a snow free route up the back bowl. We saw some pre dawn wildlife, a pair of eyes staring us down from across the creek that never budged and just watched us hike by and a deer that ran down from the high saddle as we approached the top. The usual selection of Picas and Marmots also starting popping out as the sky got brighter. The sun was still not up yet as we headed for the 600ft+ push up the first false summit. Went off trail to the right and walked up some frozen snow fields – crampons would of made easy work of this predawn refrozen snow but there is not so much snow left. The super hard core could still ski or board down into the north side bowl.

The weather was absolutely perfect on this hike. The early early start meant that when some thunderclouds rolled in we were already pack up and rolling out in the jeep. The wind was even gentle over the duration. We did put on gloves and additional layer once we hit about 13000ft.

We had the summit at 7am all to ourselves and not a soul in sight, which kind of surprised me for a Saturday morning in June. Just another benefit of the super-eeeeeearly start.

On the way down we followed the trail more dilligently which made the false summit scramble section better.
We took our time back to camp and enjoyed the rest of the short hike back out to trailhead before 11am.

It took us about 3.5 hours to summit, and only 1.5 down. LaPlata was a great time, there are so many incredible areas to explore in the area, and tons of camping opportunities. Can’t wait to get back.

The radar and weather looked like it would co-operate and I could make the time, so everything came together to take a trip to Mt. Holy Cross and try out the North Ridge Route( Class 2+, 12 miles, 5600 ft. gain). Being solo and on my first trip to Holy Cross I thought I would stick with the typical route.
This ended up being yet another plan to leave Boulder at 5pm, drive to the trailhead, and hike in to camp in the dark, to be able to wake up early in a good spot to start out from. I packed all my gear (or so I had thought…) the night before and was excited all day to have the adventure planned.

Getting there:

I took I-70 west from Golden to exit 171 (the exit is just a few miles west of Vail) and headed south on U.S. 24 a couple of miles to the town of Minturn, light was fading fast so I continued on 3 miles till I saw on the right side of the road Tigiwon Road (FS 707). Tigiwon Road is rough but my jeep ate it up. Six miles up the road you’ll pass the Tigiwon Campground, with a handful of sites. 8.5 miles up the road will bring you to the Halfmoon Campground and the trailheads, where I parked.

Halfmoon Pass:

Getting my gear together at the Jeep I noticed I forgot to pack a key piece of gear. My North Face outer shell! Whoops! I was certain the night before I had in my winter bag but, well, what to do? I looked over my gear and took a lightweight rain shell and my down. As long as it didn’t pour down the rain or the weather didn’t bring ice/rain mix I figured Id be ok.
One of the best aspects of this trip was the evening hike was illuminated by a low bright Half Moon, very appropriate! It was a good 1,000’ elevation gain to the pass, which also provided great moonlit views of the ultimate goal. Descending down 2.5 miles to East Cross Creek, I found great camping. Tooling around later I found even more alpine camping spots above Patricia Lake toward the Bowl of Tears. I need to figure out night photography with my Olympus stylus 1030sw, everything came out too dark. I didn’t see anyone else down by the Cross Creek, and after hiking up and over Halfmoon pass you really feel like you are in the wilderness, no traffic, machines, or people noise other than the occasional airliner overhead. My 1.5 person shelter was perfect and I woke up as usual before the alarm went off at 5am. It was cloudy but not raining, good enough to start out for sure. Going very light I didn’t even take a pack, the heaviest thing being the1.5 liters of water. Down on the outside I hoped for no rain so I could keep the down on and not have to trade it out for the rain jacket. About where tree line ended the clouds broke up some but I faced an uncertain future when it came to the weather. As so often is the case in Colorado in approaching 14ers from the East, the approaching weather, which comes from the West 99% of the time, is hidden from view. You don’t get a long-range view and have to keep making new assessments. It started snowing about half way up, but not heavy enough to make me reconsider, plus it was still early. I really enjoy following a track where there are no footprints in front of you. The trail becomes a bouldering-scramble made very slippery with the fresh snow-on-lichen combination. This route crosses the top of where Angelica couloir exits and it looked great, maybe I would descend that way. After a brief stop at the top it was time to head back down. Snow was coming on and more wind, enough change to make me wary of going down the couloir without an axe. The way up was covered with new snow and I got off route once I hit tree line. My native route finding abilities failed me and I had to break out my Garmin GPS to find where I had made camp. While marching around the Cross Creek Wilderness looking for my camp I found a half-eaten porcupine. Something got a hold of this large porcupine, turned it over, and ate it from the side that doesn’t have the nasty quills. Whatever that was, I was glad I didn’t run into it, I cant read tracks very well but I figured it was either a Bear or a Cougar. Definitely a hard place to leave, a special wilderness it is. Ran into a few folks on the trail as I was going out and I was jealous of the experience they had in front of them. All in all a great trip to an incredible place!