Niagara Peak North Face

Colorado, United States, North America

BigRob

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Niagara Peak North Face

Page Type:	Trip Report
Date Climbed/Hiked:	Nov 1, 2009
Activities:	Mountaineering
Season:	Fall

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.