June 25, 2010. For my first serious mountain climb this summer, I wanted somewhere nearby, and found in my guidebooks Mount Neva in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. The trailhead is only 45 minutes from Boulder, even though the last 4 miles are slow going on a rough dirt road. I got off to a later start than planned, but here I am at 6:14am at the 4th of July Trailhead.
I thought it would be good to start with a snow climb as it's still early in the summer and there's plenty of snow. If the snow didn't look good, I could hike/scramble up South Arapaho Peak instead. Fortunately you can see Mount Neva early on in the hike.
Here's a closeup (the summit is the peak right in the middle of the picture, and the snow climbs are to the right of it), and it was clear there was plenty of snow!
Even closer up. The line I wanted to take is named Juliet, and is a 400 foot "moderate" route, meaning 30-45 degrees. Roach's guide says the max is 40 degrees, whereas Cooper says the average is 40 degrees. I would be inclined to agree with Cooper. You can't quite see Juliet, which is to the left, from this angle.
A mere 8.2 mile hike (8.3 for me) with 2700 feet elevation gain, I thought this would be easy, and figured I could do it in 4 or 5 hours. I didn't count on how slow I could be at higher altitude and with a heavy (20+ pound) pack. Even on the trail I struggled to keep a 2mph pace, although I did stop for a lot of pictures. I wore my mountaineering boots, which are waterproof, which was useful because there was a lot of water and mud (and also snow) on the trail. Here is the most interesting of the many stream crossings.
Mount Neva is a tiny peak by Colorado standards--only 12,814 feet, but it's a terrific mountain to climb. The slightly higher Japser Peak is to the left, framed by two of its ridges.
I think this is Jasper Peak, although I'm not absolutely sure. This snow slope looks moderate and fun to climb--perhaps I can try it before it melts out.
More details. I'm not sure if all the lines are from skiing or not, but there were certainly plenty of ski paths down the mountains, including Neva as you'll see.
Neva again, as I get closer. The hike goes up a gully so there's not a huge variety of scenery, but the quality more than compensates for the quantity!
South Arapaho Peak to the right as you go up.
This is a very famous snow climb although it looks like it is melting out and as you can see there's no snow at the top. It's called Skywalker, on South Arapaho.
And as you can see sure enough someone is on it! There were only two other cars parked at the trailhead when I got there so this must have been one of them. And people told me later that some other people climbed this later the same day. Surprisingly although Juliet is also a classic climb I had the mountain to myself this day.
Another view of Neva
You can start to see Juliet, the uninterrupted snow couloir to the right. Left of it are the northeast slopes, on which ski tracks can be seen.
A nice view of the entire cirque.
Now Juliet is in the center. It certainly looks very steep to me! I was a little daunted to climb it.
Another look as I'm closer. To the right of Juliet is the wide couloir Desdemona, apparently a little steeper than Juliet and with one major problem--the top is protected by a cornice, which is quite dangerous. Juliet doesn't have a cornice but it does have a sort of vertical step at the top, which you can see in this picture. That was a bit of a pain to get up.
Looking down the gully.
From the Caribou Pass trail junction, a beautiful ridge leading toward South Arapaho Peak.
Soon after the trail junction you start walking cross-country to get to the route. Here's one of very few cairns. I basically took the easiest-looking route, and was pleased to find a use-trail so I must have chosen well.
Now you're on snow and rock the rest of the way. I postholed in places and put on my gaiters at some point. To the left, someone built a rock barrier for a tent. To the right is Lake Dorothy, itself apparently a popular destination.
Lake Dorothy. I stayed far away as it looked to be rapidly melting.
The second and third people I saw this day.
On the snow, approaching the base of the route.
Looking back after crossing the upper plateau.
I stashed my trekking poles around here and switched to ice ax and crampons. I also poured out over 1 liter of the 3 liters I'd brought as it was clear I had enough for the rest of the day. I brought way too much food as well, and ended up only eating the Cap'n Crunch cereal I'd brought all the way from Palo Alto.
At the base of the face.
Looking up Juliet. It doesn't look as steep when you're right there, and the picture doesn't capture the feeling anyway.
A closeup of the bottleneck.
I couldn't take pictures while climbing, of course, but I managed to get to a rock ledge at one point and take a quick shot. You can't see the couloir from this point, though.
Higher up I found a place to get a little of the feeling of the couloir.
Here's a good shot. You can see my crampon strap at the bottom of the picture.
Finally I top out. It took a half hour to climb the 400 feet--not too bad.
I then still had to walk ten minutes to get to the summit, and was rewarded with terrific view of the other side.
More summit photos.
Since I was the only one on the mountain, I had to take my own picture. Unfortunately none of my attempts came out well, but here are a couple.
I descended the northeast slopes since the guidebook implied they were easier, but I found them to feel just as steep, and going down is much harder than going up. I was never in danger, but it was unpleasant and unnerving in any case. I almost exclusively faced in, planted my ax, moved down a step or two, replanted, etc. Fortunately I'd practiced this quite a bit the last time I was in Colorado. I was very happy to finally get back to less steep ground and meet up with my tracks up Juliet. As an indication of how poor my descending skills are, it took an hour to get down, double the time it took to go up.
Back at the lake, which now had a number of visitors, I chatted with a really nice volunteer ranger who had a great deal of climbing experience including the Diamond on Longs, Denali, and Everest. I asked him for downclimbing advice on Neva and he said he would have done just the same thing I did, but he didn't want to do that so he desceneded the north ridge (another classic, class 4) instead.
He took my picture in front of Juliet. The north ridge goes around to the right, out of the picture.
It felt good to be back on the safe trail again. It was now noon and the lighting was better than the early morning so I took more pictures.
If you look closely (magnify the picture) you may be able to make out my tracks. It's amazing that people skied down this, including going through some very narrow passages between rocks.
Looking down the gully again. Notice clouds are moving in. There were possible thunderstorms forecast, but they never happened. There were still plenty of people hiking up when I was descending.
Mount Neva again.
South Arapaho Peak. I'll hike up this in the near future. There's a glacier on the other side.
The second most interesting stream crossing. This whole area was so water-logged that I was worried I was off the trail at one point.
Looking down into the valley.
Near the end of the hike.
An absolutely fantastic hike and climb. 8.3 miles, 2700 feet of climbing, 7:24 total time.
