One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: March 25, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1986_0823-24_CulebraPeak.htm)
(A
Fourteener
trip report.)
After my misadventures Saturday and Sunday, I had real doubts about climbing another mountain on this trip. I was short on sleep too. But Monday dawned clear and bright, and well, there I was, not far from Mount Lindsey, with everything I needed to climb it.
I drove the roughly seven miles up the 4WD road to the trailhead again and was on my way hiking alone by 0715. There were no other vehicles in the area, quite a contrast from the previous Saturday. (As usual I left word with my wife where I'd be, and when I'd call in after the climb.)
I followed the Lily Lake trail up the right (west) side of Huerfano Creek a long way, looking for the turnoff southeast to the mountain. It was hard to find the trail up Lindsey because it was so primitive as to be nearly non-existent. The key was to go up the main trail until past the prominent 12K peak (on the end of a long ridge I couldn't see), then cut up the lowest part of the gully beyond it. With luck I ran into cairns and a steep, on-again, off-again trail.
Bushwhacking too soon took me southeast to rock slopes. Getting across the stream and to timberline was unpleasant. After that I found good bouldering through and beyond the last bits of timber. It would have been faster down on the trail, but I didn't see it. So I stayed way left, climbing along the bottom of large cliffs across good-sized, stable rocks.
This took me past the base and through the shadow of the Iron Nipple, a pinnacle northwest of Lindsey that showed up prominently on its left shoulder when viewed from the south (say from La Veta Pass). By 0900 I was at 12000' in the back of a hidden basin that took me to Lindsey.
At the top of the basin I found a trail up a grassy sub-ridge to 12800' on a main ridge, above (north) of a 12500' saddle between Lindsey and Blanca Peak. The ridge was colored wildly with purple and orange sedimentary rocks and green tundra with various flowers. From here the route went northeast up and around to about 13120' on the ridge east to Lindsey proper.
On the higher ridge I got a good look at the last 800' to the summit, actually the northwest sub-peak. Since the peak was, like most, the high point of a ridge -- in this case a steep, cone-shaped one -- and I was looking straight at it, the mountain was very pyramidal in aspect.
The direct route up the ridge was nasty, and the steep gullies to the left (north face) looked forbidding. Also I got worried about the weather. The Sangre de Cristo Range was a narrow range prone to clouds and thunderstorms. This morning clouds had formed quickly, nothing towering except one fast-building spike right near the peak.
So without wasting any time I found a cairned route across and off the left side of the ridge, into a prominent white gully up the pyramid, and moved fast. The climbing was decent, a choice between scree and cracks/ledges on boulders. After a while I reached the top of the gully, and there was no obvious way to go for the last 200'. So I picked a path up a rock rib, then a gully, getting closer to the top of the ridge.
I found myself on the ridge, just past the northwest 14000'+ sub-peak, and ran back to it for a moment. Then I scooted for the main peak, ducking my head and paying attention to see if my hair stood on end(!) Near the main peak I paused on a trail, below the ridgetop, to consider the ugly cloud overhead.
Then I did something I'd never done before -- dropped my pack and ran for the summit of Mount Lindsey. I spent all of two minutes up there, 1043-1045, hunched low. Just long enough to yell "hiyo!", sign in, and look around quickly, keeping my head down. (Time to summit was 3:30 for 3550'.)
It was a bummer to rush after all the trouble to get there. But why should my experience on my 50th Fourteener be any more perfect than the rest of my climbing?
And a coincidence, this just happened to be my mother's 50th birthday too. Nature is not benign... And in retrospect I did the prudent thing, not hanging around under a potentially lethal thundercloud. Never mind that it didn't actually storm until four hours later!
Coming back down I got off the ridge and into a sheltered spot where I stopped for half a lunch. Then I screwed up again -- I traversed northwest hoping to see Blanca Peak between clouds, but it was too far around. As a result I started down too soon, thinking I'd already passed the route. I ended up doing a lot of hairy downclimbing on talus, faces, ledges, and cracks; within my abilities but uncomfortably exposed at times.
And I reached the sudden transition from rock ribs and gullies to talus slopes about 200' too low, at 1200, ~12900'. I had to traverse and climb back to the high ridge. Fortunately as I rather had known it would, the bad weather held off. The nasty cloud overhead got worse, obscuring the peak at times, but no lightning started.
I spent some time at various spots on the way down relaxing, enjoying the scenery, and taking pictures. The route (such as it is) through the basin passed some lovely glades of tundra and occasional small pines. Lower down there were huge boulders which had fallen from the cliffs, forming deep caves.
I returned to the Jeep at 1430 (3:45 to mosey back), just before it started to rain in earnest. I finally had a bit of good luck!
Of course then it took over an hour just to drive out to Gardner, a small town on the paved road through the Wet Mountain Valley. With stops including dinner in Westcliffe I didn't get home until 2250, 8:20 and 270 miles after ending the hike!
(Next trip report: 1986_0829-30_KitCarson.htm)