| Princeton Won't Win Twice! Trip Report |
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| Princeton Won't Win Twice!   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 8, 2006 Activities: Hiking Season: Summer | Page By: COTrekker02 Created/Edited: Jul 26, 2006 / Jul 26, 2006 Object ID: 210464 Hits: 832 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
An Early, Busy Start I have been chomping at the bit to get another shot at Princeton since being vested in a summit bid last April. My buddy and I attempted a summit ski descent via the east bowl, but after a tough day decided to ski down from the east ridge about 800 vertical feet below the summit. Therefore, I was excited to get back on the mountain. My wife planned this as our first visit back into the mountains after a month of absence due to travel.
So, we hit the road from Denver on Friday at 6 pm and passed by the gates to the ranch at the beginning of the Mt. Princeton Road at about 8:45 in the dusk. We quickly drove up the steep, narrow road all the way to the radio towers, and pulled into a flat spot right next to one of the towers. We climbed in back of the Jeep and went to bed at about 10 pm.
We awoke at 6:15 am and after a quick breakfast and changing, we departed up the remainder of the road at 7 am. The peak was already socked in and it was spitting rain. I was amazed at the number of cars parked near the road by the towers (8) and the number of people who we had as company on the road up to the main trail. We passed most of these folks before turning off onto the trail at the large rock cairn, which is NOT hard to spot as I have read before.
The weather was quite chilly and rainy, but we kept a brisk pace and stayed warm in our soft shell jackets and shorts. The trail is very easy to follow and meanders along the east ridge below the ridge top, making it's way up to the ridge. While Roach's book says to stay on the trail almost all the way to the old mine and then traverse up to the gain the ridge, there were large rocks blocking the way about halfway across the ridge slope and the trail switchbacked steeply up to gain much earlier than I remember or than Roach's book indicates. This was fine, though, because once on the ridgetop, the going was quick. The talus was quite slippery, though, due to the rain and our hands were quite cold (left the gloves in the car like genuises).
We ended up chatting with two other groups and pretty much accompanied each other to the summit, where we met a couple other groups of people. We made the summit at 9:30 am, two and a half hours after leaving the radio towers at 10,820 feet. At this point it was raining quite heavily, and we left the summit after only about 10 minutes.An Uneventful Descent We left the summit and headed quickly down, although we had to step carefully as our hands were warming in our jacket sleeves due to our stupid mistake in forgetting our gloves. After a while, though, our hands were warm enough to take back out of our pockets and quicken our pace.
We left the ridgetop earlier than where we had gained it on the ascent and ended up not far from where the original trail went to before heading up to the ridgetop. We found and lost the trail at several points, but the terrain is so easy, it is still easy class one hiking. Eventually we met up with the trail where it was now directing people upward to the ridgetop via the rocks blocking the trail. We had passed most people on the ascent so had relative solitude on the way out, passing two other groups of folks making their way to the soggy summit. We were back to the Jeep at about noon, making the round trip time of five hours.
We shed our soggy, and I mean soggy, clothes and got into the warm Jeep and headed back to town. We had hoped to camp on the road to St. Elmo but in light of the weather decided for a hot tub and soft bed in Buena Vista, so headed into town, with a detour to Amica's Brewpub in Salida... There's nothing like a cold brew after a successful summmit bid, no matter how easy the hike. This was definitely not a challenging peak this time, but while we were cruising up to the summit in the rain I kept remembering how darn hard the hike on the same trail was three months earlier, when brutal wind, long, hard snowfields and heavy packs w/ skis on our backs made us longing for the couch...not really. It's why we do it. So I guess now I'll need to come back for a third time to lock into my skis on the summit, and carve turns down the same trail I cruised up on a rainy July day. Images
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Sawatch Range
