Niagara Peak North Face

Trip Report

Images (1)

Comments (1)

Geography

Trip Reports in Colorado

Niagara Peak North Face

Page Type: Trip Report

Location: Colorado, United States, North America

Date Climbed/Hiked: Nov 1, 2009

Activities: Mountaineering

Season: Fall

Page By: BigRob

Created/Edited: Nov 2, 2009 / Nov 3, 2009

Object ID: 569883

Hits: 155

Page Score: 87.81% - 8 Votes

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Table of Contents

North Face Snow Route

Burns Gulch Approach

Looking back NW

North Crown Mountain

Drift across upper Burns Gulch

View of Niagara

View down through my legs

Driving Home-Grenadiers

Images

North Face Snow Route

2009/11/1
Niagara Peak 13,807
Burns Gulch Approach
Solo Undocumented Route- Direct line up North Face

I slept in until four a.m.. I had packed my gear the night before so all I had to do is press some coffee and hit the road. I drove to Eureka and proceeded to Burns Gulch via ATV. I didn’t know the road condition and didn’t want to take a chance. The road was in good shape. I went as far as possible up the Burns Gulch Road until I lost traction at around 11,000.

I put on snowshoes and headed up Burns Gulch. I generally stayed on the North/Right side. There was a very large drift bisecting the upper gulch. I followed the prominence that probably cause it and came across a nice line up the North face of Niagara. The snow was fairly firm and I gave it a go. It was fairly steep, and I had trouble in the upper stretches with loose rocks under the snow. I joined the usual route from Burns Gulch just below the false summit. I circled around to the east and followed a wide ridge to the summit.

What a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. I took lots of photos in every direction and headed down. I originally planned on completing a cirque of the basin and going to Jones Peak. Upon getting to the saddle low point, I had a gel and weighed my options. It was almost 13:00 and I figured it would get dark at 17:30. I decided to go down. In the end, it would have probably been better to go over Jones and taken a direct line down to the ATV. I wallowed in snow the whole way. The route over Jones appeared to have low snow levels.