July 2, 2010 I climbed Mount Audubon (13,223 feet). This is supposed to be the easiest 13er in in Indian Peaks Wilderness, since there is a nice 8 mile trail to the summit. I've been feeling weak lately, due to illness or overtraining or both, and plan to take a break from hiking, but I wanted to squeeze this one in before the 4th of July weekend. I got there at 5:45am, and yet again there were exactly 2 cars parked there (the lot would be full and cars in overflow parking when I returned). One car arrived just ahead of me, with a nice couple and their dog. I thought they would be savvy locals, but they'd just moved to Loveland a year ago from Texas. The ground was wet indicating it had rained not long ago, and there were clouds in the sky already, so I hoped I could somehow beat the rain.
Since there had been so much snow my last two big hikes, I thought I'd try a snow climb again, either the "Autobahn" which climbs to a notch in the SE ridge, or the Crooked Couloir up the south face. I would then take the trail down, making a perfect loop. I was shocked to find, though, that although there was snow low down on the trail, there was almost no snow to be seen on the mountain at all!
Where's the snow? I couldn't even figure out where the Autobahn route was supposed to be, so I hoped I could still climb the Crooked Couloir or else I'd just give up, since I wasn't about to go back and then do the trail up and down.
I was hoping these were not the south-facing couloirs, since they were nearly melted out plus way too steep for the supposed "moderate" rating. It turns out they are SE facing couloirs and I couldn't see the south ones yet.
General view of the mountain.
A small unnamed lake between Mitchell Lake and Blue Lake.
Mount Toll.
I'm not sure what this is.
Moving farther to the west, I can finally see the south couloirs. The continuous line of snow on the left is Crooked Couloir, the only one not yet melted out. This would be what I climb! It's rated moderate (30-45 degrees) but looked pretty easy from this angle.
Looking toward Blue Lake, which cannot yet be seen.
Blue Lake with Mount Toll in the distance. That looks like a fun peak to climb too.
Pawnee Peak.
Getting closer to the Crooked Couloir.
Closer still. At some point I ran into a couple guys who had just gone up and down the couloir. The said the snow was a bit soft but crampons were still needed. (I would find the snow just about perfect, even on the hard side.) Note the clouds visible to the right--I was worried about the weather. They said it was supposed to rain later in the day.
I strongly considered scrapping the climb and turning around. However I was feeling okay, and the clouds seemed to be rain clouds rather than thunderstorm clouds. Rain or snow I could handle. I figured I'd start climbing and beat a hasty retreat if the weather started to deteriorate. Fortunately it stayed fairly steady, neither improving or getting worse, for most of the climb.
The lower slopes, as is typical, were "easy" (below 30 degrees). The climb would steepen, but it never seemed as steep as Mount Neva. I felt comfortable all the way up, but downclimbing would have been more unpleasant. Looking down at Blue Lake.
There were some bands of rock I needed to get past, and I just walked on them with crampons, reminding me of Rainier. The footing was much more solid than Disappointment Cleaver, luckily.
Mount Toll and an unnamed lake.
Back down at Blue Lake, showing the increasing steepness and the talus field.
Unending snow. This was one of the longest snow climbs I've done, about 1600 feet. I should note that it was rather cold and windy, and I wore my wool cap and gloves with liners. I brought 2 liters of water and a ton of food, but perhaps because of the cold I drank less than 1/3 of a liter. I also ended up only eating a single package of senbei and peanuts. I'd eaten a good breakfast before leaving and was fine with just that.
The two guys had told me it would take 1.25 to 1.5 hours to get up--I'm not sure if they meant just the snow, or all the way to the summit. Anyway it took me 1:34 to get up the snow, and given my weakness lately and continuing problems with altitude I was satisfied with that. I spent 10 minutes taking off crampons and so forth and then another 18 minutes to go up the ridge to the summit. Here are the first views to the north upon reaching the ridge.
Mount Audubon is one of the northernmost Indian Peaks, so you get a great view of Longs Peak.
Longs Peak. I definitely want to climb this mountain this summer.
View to the northwest, I think. The ridge should be part of the Continental Divide.
A beautiful cirque, but I'm not sure just what this is--I'll have to figure it out.
I still had to climb a lot of talus to get to the summit. Fortunately it was fairly easy going. I could hear voices and make out two figures at the top, and it was nice to know I wasn't alone.
There were two nice guys from Fort Collins on the summit. It was incredibly windy and I was nearly knocked down several times trying to get to the summit. We hid behind some rocks and ate a little--I only stayed 5 minutes on the summit due to the wind. They kindly took a couple pictures of me with Longs in the background.
They had come up the trail which was great because I wanted to descend the trail but didn't know which way to go. It's all talus at the top so there's no trail for quite a while. They pointed me in the right direction and then headed off a different way to find one guy's hat which had blown away. Unfortunately they didn't locate it.
Longs Peak again. You can see the thunderstorm clouds are starting to build. I hoped I could beat the storm down, or at least to treeline. The wind continued to be very strong but luckily it was at my back the whole way down. It seemed like this might be a big storm, and it was coming early. It's still 10:20am at this point.
At the bottom of the talus slope, the trail can be seen. Beyond it are Beaver Reservoir and the Stapp Lakes.
Still not down to the trail yet, I found an easy snow field and decided to descend it instead of the talus.
Looking back up. Again fast and fun to go down!
Finally on the trail. I'm glad I didn't take the trail up too because it was no fun at all. Lots of loose rocks, so terrible footing (until you get below treeline), and very dull scenery compared to what I had going up.
Back toward Longs.
Toward the summit of Audubon.
Continuing down the trail. There were quite a few other people going down, and many going up as well despite the very strong winds and deteriorating weather.
Finally getting down toward Brainard Lake.
The trail below treeline was less rocky, at least, and I was able to speed up.
I got back at 12:22pm, after hiking 6.5 hours. The total distance was 7.4 miles with 2700 feet of climbing. The shortest and easiest of my three big climbs and I felt the best at the end. Best of all I just beat the storm! It started raining just after I started to drive, and I got to see lots of lightning on the drive home. The storm lasted 2 hours and then the sun came out again. My first 13er in Colorado, and second overall (to Mount Dana in Yosemite).
