Gladstone makes an appearance after a long battle to treeline. It's the pointy one on the right.
Lizard Head, regarded as the toughest of CO's 584 ranked 13ers.
Zoom of Lizard Head.
Sunshine and the beautiful Bilk Basin. This basin has an evil creek though!
Jamie admires a unique view of Wilson Peak. It looks like a mini-Rainier!
The northeast face of Gladstone comes into view. It looks steep, but for the most part our route is no steeper than the low 40's until the last 10 feet..
Lizard Head pokes through a gap at an unnamed lake at 12K.
Wilson Peak's southeast face.
Looking east to the Vermilion group.
The red line is our route on the northeast face. We hit the east ridge and continued up to the summit.
The start of the moderate face climb to the east ridge. Notice the old wet slide. We still managed to hit this pretty early before it softened up too much since we started at 3am.
Jaimie enjoying the climb.
Mike and Jaimie nearing a rock band that we weaved through on snow.
Mike about to top out on the ridge. There was a short section of about 10 feet that neared about 50 degrees.
Jaimie about to top out on the ridge.
We had about only about 300 horizontal feet to the summit, but we were all gassed and took it slow.
Mike on some steep snow near the summit. I took the strip of snow on the right.
Looking down the east ridge.
Mt Wilson and El Diente from the summit of Gladstone.
Wilson Peak from Gladstone.
Our descent was via the standard class 3 north ridge route. Snow limited the options, so we ended up doing some harder, more exposed moves.
Notice the shards of loose blocks, typical in the San Juans. We felt some of the junk was still frozen in place. Testing holds is critical on this ridge.
On and on it goes.
A tricky downclimb.
Whoa Nelly! No, Mike is not on the cornice. This guy is about ready to go.
OK, Mike. Don't show this to your mommy!
We were finally able to glissade or plunge step off the ridge at about 13500' when the slope relented.
Lizard Head and a little waterfall on the descent.
Posthole hell
One of the longest waterfalls I have seen in CO, the upper one at Bilk Creek.
The beautiful lower waterfall.
And they call this a creek!
Wilson Peak on the way out.
