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| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: Sep 29, 2006 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Fall | Page By: altitude14er Created/Edited: Oct 1, 2006 / Oct 1, 2006 Object ID: 230786 Hits: 608 Loading... Page Score: 86.49% - 2 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Handies Peak & Point 13,795ft. Featuring Altitude14er & Asphazel
8.5 Miles Roundtrip, 4,050ft. of Elevation Gain
9-29-2006
Me and my friend asphazel drove down to Lake City wandering if his Chevy Blazer would be able to reach the Grizzly Gulch Trailhead. According to local news broadcasts, it had snowed two feet above tree line the week prior. The rough shelf road was dry and accommodating, allowing easy passage all the way to the trailhead at 10,400ft. When we arrived at the trailhead it was about 1am and we were the only ones around. We dozed off to the sound of bugling Elk in the nearby forest.
Me and Asphazel awoke to the strangest sounding ‘animal’ either one of us had ever heard. It was fairly dark – 6:30am. Whatever it was it had been circling the Blazer, making a hideous sound. We later contemplated what the odd noise could have been. I’ve never heard anything like it before. It was some kind of Blair Witch crap!
Thanks to our ‘mysterious alarm clock’ (aka the Blair Witch), we started off from the trailhead at 7am. We encountered little snow leading up to tree line. It warmed quickly with the rising sun and we found ourselves shedding gear. We arrived on the summit many hours later, we were in no
hurry. We followed the standard east slopes route to the summit. Several inches of snow covered a lot of Handies above tree line. The warm weather was melting it fast. The summit of Handies was everything Gerry Roach had cracked it up to be. It was a glorious day and we basked in the warm sun at 14,048ft. It was the day before my 26th birthday, and there was nowhere
on earth I’d rather have been. Asphazel was pumped up and talked me into taking the long ridge of ups and downs to Point 13,795ft. He wanted to tag the bicentennial since we were so close to it, it made sense.
Two and a half hours later and we were on the summit of Point 13,795ft. A single set of tracks in the snow let us know we were not the only ones to do this long traverse in September. The elevation loss and gain, followed by more loss and gain on this ridge was tough after doing Handies Peak first. We descended the route described in Gerry Roaches “Colorado Fourteeners” guidebook back to the grizzly gulch trail. It is the ridge beginning near the top of Point 13,700ft. The snow here was deep and unavoidable. We plunge stepped down to the lake near 12,300ft. From the lake were able to bushwhack through the trees and rejoin the grizzly gulch trail shortly above tree line. By the time we made it back to the trailhead it was nearly dark. Back at the trailhead, we talked with two gents who were able to get there SUV up and down Cinnamon Pass…amazing for this time of year a week after a big storm! I Love Colorado. A special thanks to my boss for letting me take the day off and making the thing possible.
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Handies Peak
