Mt. Antero

It was the spring break of my last semester of graduate coursework and I thought it might be nice to get out and do a tougher hike. Dave Hale and I had been passing the idea of doing something back and forth for a few weeks and had originally decided on the Sunshine/Redcloud combination but factors such as distance, lodging, and snow cover dissuaded us from this notion. Ultimately we decided on tackling Antero from the Baldwin Gulch Trailhead. Dave's friend Brian Frieburger and his Golden Retriever, Jack also came along.

Dave and Brian invited me to crash at a lodge they had rented in Buena Vista the night before we were to climb and I drove down Monday, March 21st, 2005, from Boulder to meet them. I was pretty tired when I arrived and we all turned in around 10:30. I awoke at 5 the next morning and headed out to 7-11 for coffee. When I returned to the lodge we all packed up and headed for more coffee before going to the trailhead.

The trailhead itself is about 10 miles past the turn off to the Mt. Princeton auto road and we arrived and started hiking at 8:11 After about 1 hour we arrived at the regular 4wd parking 3 miles in and ~1500 feet up.

From here the snow became much more powdery and their was a good bit of postholing for most of the rest of the trip. I should add that Brian has some incredible endurance and kept the front for the whole way. After the second stream crossing we mistakenly went left and lost about 20 minutes. Once we figured out the right way we were back on track. We soon came to an opening abovve the trees where we had a clear view of the peak.

We spoke a bit about choices and decided to head directly up the second gully we came to rather than walk the switchbacks. The climbing was pretty easy and the gully stayed moderately low angled until the top where it reached ~30 degrees on snow then 40-50 on rock. At one point we stopped and Dave snapped a couple of photos. Dave accidentally dropped his camera in the bag and we watched it roll down the steepest part of the gully. We were all pretty tired from the climb and watched it tumble, Jack actually took off after it and taking this as a cue Brian shouted 'fetch Jack, fetch'. Jack sprang down after it grabbed it and ran it right back to Dave, the picture below is right after this. It was great to have Jack along because he always seemed to have energy when we didn't.

At the top of the gully we regained the road for ~ 400 feet before turning off on a trail that brought us around the back of the mountain. On the other side we were awarded fantastic views of Shavano and Tabeguache. The day was beautiful and the wind stayed low, I thin the temperature went between 11 and 30 degrees depending on where we were but given the length of the hike we stayed warm from exertion. We continued around the backside over steeper snowfield until arriving at the top of the 4wd road and the start pf the saddle.

When we got to the saddle we were a bit concerned about the steepness of the snow covering it in many areas. The concern came both from questioning its stability and Jack's safety. I was quite honestly tired enough that I could have happily turned around (Hiking with Dave and Brian is always a bit humbling to my ego). Dave left it us to up as he has climbed this before. Brian decided he wanted to go for it so we headed out. This turned out to be a bit tricky as we initially tried the backside of the ridge to avoid the snow slopes.

On the back side we found ourselves faced with snow covered and slippery climbing which ws ~3rd class in some areas. After expending a considerable bit of time we headed back for the ridge proper. It turned out that the snow conditions were better than we expected and we finished the climb on the ridge. Below is a picture of Dave.

Once back on the ridge we made quick time and managed to gain the summit in 20 minutes. The day was beautiful and we had arrived in about 6.5 hours, without the detour in the beginning and attempting the back side of the ridge it would have been 5.5. We hung out on the ridge and marveled at the scenery. The weather was great and the views afforded some of the most densely packed scenery I have seen in a while. The Sawatchers, Sangres, and Pikes Peak were all visible. I mostly hunkered down and refueled. This ws my seventh mountain over 13000 in two months but I was so beat I could have slept up there.

We left the peak at around 3:15 and made our way back across the ridge.

Jack seemed unfatigued which made me want to throw a saddle on him but he was to quick to catch. We all made short work of the descent and arrived back at our trucks at 6:11 making it a perfect ten hour day. Brian and Dave headed to dinner but I knew I wouldn't be able to stay awake for the drive home if I didn't get going so I headed back to Boulder. I used my usual trick of finding the Rush Limbaugh station and leaving it on back to Boulder, this keeps me to pissed off to fall asleep. I had a great day and Brian, Dave, and Jack were fun and challenging partners. I look forward to our full moon climb of Quandary later in the week.