I had one more Elk Range 14er peak to finish up before meeting up with Sam and Raquel again for the San Juan Range.
The roundtrip to do Snowmass from the 2wd trailhead was 22 miles so we decided to hike in and camp at Snowmass Lake first. Once again the bear canister was required so my pack was painfully heavy. The trail followed an old road for a while above a creek and then up through the aspens. The hike in was long and seemed to go on forever. I stopped to try to discourage a stream from heading down the trail and while bent over moving rocks my camera did the drop spin move out of my Cotton Carrier chest harness and because I was bent over the retaining cord wasn't long enough to keep it from bouncing off the rocks. The first bounce popped the lens cap off and the second scratched the front element of the fisheye lens. This is the cheapest lens I routinely use, but I still wasn't very happy to have it essentially destroyed for clear picture taking (there is a spot in every picture now). Eventually we crossed the river on the log jam and headed up the mountain. Someone told us we were almost there - I suppose we were almost there in a relative sense, but there was nearly an hour more hiking, some of which was very uphill. I think there might have been some expletives uttered. At least there were some waterfalls - one was about 30 feet tall and I saw a fish try to jump up it - nice try little guy. We found a nice spot nearish to the lake with people packing up, so we hung out by the lake watching the fish swim by until they were gone before we set up our camp. I even jumped into the lake for a quick cool down rinse.
| |
|---|
 |
|---|
That night it rained a little, but fortunately the numerous willows obstructing the trail were dry when I had to hike by them in the morning. I started early - and managed to find some swampy ground by headlamp. When I got to the far side of the lake it was starting to get light. I headed up the rather unpleasant talus and scree before crossing the creek/waterfall to more pleasant rock and steep meadow up to the plateau. The wildflowers were most excellent. The snow had melted a lot since we looked over at the peak from the Maroon Bells. I hiked up the rocks for a while before getting to more solid snow. There I strapped on my aluminum crampons and headed uphill. I opted to go up to the steep notch in the snow rather than lower on the ridge. I post holed a few times but not much. It got really steep at the top. I had a hard time getting the poles into the snow ahead of me and then sunk them almost to the handles to provide security for when my feet slid down in the semi-soft snow. Luckily there were only a few feet of the 50 or so degree snow at the top. From there it was some scrambling up to the top. There I enjoyed the view and was photo-bombed by a marmot (who probably just wanted to eat some of my food).
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
I descended via the standard route. Some of the snow was too soft for proper standing glissading but I was able to boot ski a bit. Once I was off the snow the descent seemed long as usual. From the edge of the plateau I could see the hammock across the lake. It was a lot easier to navigate through the willows in the daylight. Back at camp I had some ramen and there was a tiny bit of rain to hamper the packing up.
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
The hike out started a bit faster but then the rains came - it really poured for a while but then steadied at a drizzle for a while. It did clear up after a bit and for the end so that we weren't totally soaked getting back into our vehicles. Nalumon had a hankering for Thai food, but the best we could find was Vietnamese - the pho was tasty though, and hot and filling.
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
Summary of July 16 and 17th, one 14er, about 22 miles, 5,800 + feet of elevation gain, one scratched lens, some rain, and tired slackers.