Snow climbing Peak 6 (Tenmile range)

Snow climbing Peak 6 (Tenmile range)

A continuation in the series of explorations of the chutes on the west side of the Tenmile range, this time to Peak 6 (12,619') from Copper on 2023/4/30 with Adam. We followed the big chute ('6c') that closed CO 19 on the way to Leadville (heading south out of Copper) in spring 2019.

I woke at 2:30 am to leave home at 3:02 and meet Adam in Morrison at 3:30. We departed Morrison at 3:34 to arrive at before 5 at Copper. We started from Adam's truck at 5:17 am, departed the Far East / Corn lot at 5:58, started from the couloir base at 6:21, arrived at WP07 at 7:51, summited at 10:59, departed the summit at 11:17, arrived at waypoint 07 at 12:32 pm, reached the couloir base at 1:44, got to the Far East / Corn lot at 2:21, and back at the truck at 2:50.

If you want to have dry feet to start, the key to the route is knowing the bridge over Tenmile creek for the CDT at N39.49731 W106.13566. Park as close to that as is practical. Corn lot at N39.49708 W106.13641 is ideal; the Tenmile trailhead at N39.50908 W106.14230 with bridge at N39.50487 W106.14076 should typically work; parking off the road south of mile marker 21 at N39.48413 W106.13341 is possible but you still have to walk back to the CDT bridge at N39.49731 W106.13566. We followed the main couloir up (green in diagrams, featuring the most snow - when it is cold or if you are riding down). As in the climbing diagram, go to the climber's right at WP07 at N39.49119 W106.12236. The path is straightforward, follow the summit ridge to the left to Peak 6 at N39.49368 W106.11138 at 12619'. Angles going up included 15.6 deg (base), 30.3 (middle), and 31.3 (upper steepest section).

The middle couloir (red) had less snow, so we descended that way to avoid deep post-holing. On the way down, we traversed straight across up high to avoid the steepest section with very thin snow coverage that day. So we descended a ridge (deeper snow) to traverse to the skier’s left across and into the chute just above rock chimney features. This gives a quick descent back to the WP 07. This is a steeper route, i did not measure but would guess more like 40 deg on the ridge above the rock chimneys.

There is a left fork (blue) that we did not try. The lowest section is south facing and was melted out, but the route offers an alternative to the presumably steepest middle route (red).

While at freezing at the Eisenhower tunnel and Dillon, it was 28 deg F on parking at Copper. The snow was hard, without much post-holing in only boots. The awkward part of the approach was having to find the bridge; once across we followed the recreation trail to the base of the couloir at mile marker 0.5. We followed up on top of previous ski or board tracks as much as we could to leverage the packing and thaw/freeze of snow from at least the previous day. There were post holes on the way down, but the steeper middle chute had evidence of winter sliding that helped to consolidate the snow. I found my right snowshoe was broken (the foot part was detached from central articulating bar). I vaguely remember drilling out bad rivets some time ago and replacing with machine screws, that must have come undone since then. This time, I repaired using blue thread locker. We also saw a Flight for Life helicopter descend from the valley towards Leadville, it looked like to land for a pick-up at Copper. This is different from the skier avalanche fatality at Bald mountain on Saturday April 29.

Start (pack & camera): 25.2 lbsEnd (pack, camera, shows): 29.9 lbs

Link to album of photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/19047247@N04/albums/72177720307981027