Thursday Adventure: Quandary Peak, redux

Last year I did a Thursday Adventure post talking about 14,265 ft Quandary Peak and showing off some pics from a mid-summer ascent.  But Quandary deserves another Thursday Adventure post, because yesterday I had a particularly special visit to the peak: I took long-time blog reader (and book reviewer, SF Signal Mind Meld Curator, and all-around awesome genre commentor) Paul Weimer on his very first attempt at summitting a 14K peak.  Paul lives in Minnesota and this was his first visit to Colorado.  For the last week or so he's been driving around Colorado visiting all manner of parks and wilderness areas, and photographing them (he's a terrific photographer - for a sampling of his Colorado pics, check out his Tumblr account!).  I offered to take him up a 14er, and he was foolish brave enough to accept.  

At the Quandary Peak trailhead: Paul Weimer (right) is ready for the challenge!  On the left is our other hiking companion, my friend and fellow 14er enthusiast Dustin Putnam.

I chose Quandary because it's one of the easiest 14ers to summit.  But as Paul found out, there's no such thing as an "easy" 14er!  Especially in the early season - we had a lot of snow in Colorado in April, and so Quandary's upper slopes currently remain covered in deep, slushy snow.  We had to wear snowshoes to prevent postholing (sinking thigh or waist-deep into the snow).  No big deal, but snowshoes add pounds of weight to your feet, making an ascent an even greater challenge for a novice.  The weather was another source of trepidation at first - yesterday morning dawned cloudy and rainy in Boulder, and I worried the visibility would be nil on the peak.  But thankfully, once we drove through the Eisenhower Tunnel and crossed the Continental Divide, the clouds vanished and the day beyond was beautifully sunny and warm. 

The Quandary trail starts off with a nice gentle ascent through pine forest.  But soon, the pines thin, and the views expand: 

Paul taking a rest break and enjoying the views

Paul with Quandary's east ridge in the background.  (You can't quite see the summit in this picture, as it is blocked by the bulk of the ridge.)

Soon enough, the trail vanished into a snowbank, and it was time to put on gaiters and snowshoes.  In the summer, the trail switchbacks up the ridge, often staying to the south side.  When the ridge is snowcovered, you simply stomp straight up the ridgeline.  Direct, but strenuous.  

At this point, Paul is beginning to curse my name.  (The slope is far steeper than it appears in the pic. And people unacclimated to altitude soon find that the air is very, very thin!)

But look: he's still willing to smile!

The never-ending snow slope to Quandary's "false summit."  (You reach the top of this snow slope and then see the REAL summit looming beyond.)

Paul and I, onward and upward

The real summit at last appears in view: so close, and yet so far!

Valley south of Quandary.  The infamous Cristo Couloir drops straight down from the summit to the mining road at the base of this valley. Glissading or skiing the couloir, you can drop 3000+ feet in 5 minutes.

Approaching the saddle before the final steep slope to the summit.

Paul at the saddle.

Paul was a real trooper, stubbornly trudging onward despite his need for frequent rests to gasp for air.  The weather was perfect, not a thunderstorm in sight, meaning we could stay on the peak much later than is typical for Colorado.  I'd been hoping Paul could reach the summit, but alas, my friend Dustin had family coming into town and needed to get back home before evening fell, so we had to turn around before it grew too late.  (It's always important to remember on a peak: uphill only takes you halfway, you still need the energy and time to safely get back down!)  

Paul and I at our turn-around point.  Paul: "Like Caradhras and the Fellowship of the Ring, the mountain had defeated me."  Me: "Just means you need a rematch."

Dustin and Paul, snowshoes on and ready to descend

On the way down, we did get to do a brief little glissade: the slope wasn't steep enough to need an ice axe for speed control, so trekking poles worked just fine.  (The snow was so soft & slushy it was actually hard to get going!)  

Sequence of Paul glissading down (Dustin standing beside the glissade track).

We might not have made Quandary's summit, but in my view there's nothing better than a gorgeous day spent in the mountains with friends!  

Thursday Adventure: Quandary Peak (Colorado)

As usual I'm busy, busy, busy writing on The Tainted City, but I thought I'd take a few moments away to share a couple pics from another 14K peak nice and close to Denver: 14,265 ft Quandary Peak, in the Tenmile Range outside Breckenridge.  Quandary is a lovely summer hike, only 6.75 mi round trip with 3,450 ft elevation gain.

Me hiking the trail up Quandary, in late June

Of course, on a peak so easy and close to Denver, there's no such thing as solitude on the trail in the summer.  But there's a nice little side benefit to that: Quandary is home to quite a few mountain goats, and they've gotten so used to the crowds that they'll practically come right up to you.  Hiking in early summer, you even get to see adorably fuzzy babies scampering up the rocks with their mamas.

Mountain goat on the trail

Baby goat playing near Quandary's summit

If you hike the peak in the early season, you can even spice up the trip a bit by glissading down the Cristo Couloir instead of hiking back down the trail.  Glissading, for those not in the know, involves sliding down a steep snow slope on your butt, using an ice axe as a combination rudder and brake.  Quandary's Cristo Couloir is a classic - you can zoom down to the base of the peak in 5 minutes flat, instead of 2 hours' hike on the trail. But the steeper the slope, the more mandatory the ice axe - you must know how to self-arrest safely, or risk slamming into rocks at the snowfield's bottom.  (You don't want to miss the arrest & flail like this guy.) An unfortunate number of people in CO have gotten badly hurt or even died while glissading because they don't take it seriously enough.  

I speak from quasi-experience here, having had my own "dumbass glissade" moment on Quandary, many years ago when my husband-to-be and I were first hiking together.  He'd never glissaded anything steep and was dying to try the Cristo Couloir.  We'd spent a day practicing self-arrest techniques on a much less steep snowfield, and I'd dutifully checked the avalanche conditions for Cristo and found the danger was low, so I thought we were set.  At Quandary's summit, I gave Robert a last set of safety instructions, speaking from my oh-so-vast experience (a couple years of peak climbing + having completed the Colorado Mountain Club's mountaineering school).  He zoomed off down the slope, whooping all the way, until he passed out of sight.

I followed, a bit more cautiously.  The top section of the couloir is quite steep and you need to avoid some rocks poking through the snow.  I dug my heels into the snow a bit as I slid, thinking to help keep my speed under control.  Big mistake!  One foot promptly plunged deep into the snow, and momentum kept me sliding right past it.  I spun and ended up dangling upside down on the slope on my back.  The snow around my trapped foot had set like cement, and I couldn't get my leg free, even chopping at the snow around it with my ice axe.  (Nothing like doing a vertical sit-up while wearing a heavy pack and waving an ice axe.)

I wasn't in any serious danger, but talk about embarrassing.  There I was, the so-called experienced one, stuck like a bug in a flytrap.  Thankfully, after some twenty minutes, another glissader came by and dug me out - and then braced me on the mountainside while my newly-freed leg cramped up with the mother of all agonizing charley horses.  I finally got down to the base to find a very anxious Robert about to start snow-climbing back up to look for me.  Moral of the story: when glissading, NEVER dig your heels in - bend your knees and skate your feet on top of the snow!  And don't get cocky. ;)