Mt. Of The Holy Cross Trip Report
Trail: Tear Drop II, Class 3, Steep Snow, 14 miles, ~6000 ft elevation gain
Well it was Friday August 19th and I had failed to summit anything the previous weekend (damn graduate school gets in the way of hiking). I had just spent a constructive week trying to figure out what the difference between optical depth and optical thickness in the context of radiative transfer through stellar atmospheres was and after 30 hours on the topic still had no clue. Couple this to calculating luminosities of emission lines in distant galaxies, working until midnight every night, NOT EVER getting on my bike, and seeing my wife all of 30 minutes a day I decided it was time to go out and try and beat the thought out of my head on a nice, long, and tough hike. I decided on Mt. of the Holy Cross as I had heard it was beautiful and tough. Let me tell you, it was tough. I don't claim to be a veteran peakbagger and this is only my 11th summit but it was tougher than anything to date. The armchair mountaineers who bemoan the travails of Longs Peak ought to try this one.
Ok, let me start. Jen and I headed out of the house at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday, September 20th. We arrived at the trailhead to the mountain by about 6:00 and I was pleased by how easy our little Ford Escort took it. It was still dark so we put on our LED headlights and set out on the trail. The first 2 miles were nicely beaten and offered little in the way of climbing and as it was dark even less in the way of views. At about 7:00 the sun began to rise over the horizon and we had reached a path between two low lying mountains.
We headed through the pass and reached a cliff top through which our trail steadily switch-backed 970 feet to the valley floor. Here is a picture of the mountain at the cliffs top.
This picture is of some mountains with fall setting in.
We headed down to the bottom of the cliff and walked for a mile or so before turning off the main trail and ascending an old climbing trail up some steep terrain. As usual I opted for a harder route so we bypassed the usual easy walk up. We walked through a beautiful iced over valley which contained many small streams and ponds for about two miles before coming to the famous Bowl of Tears. Here is a picture of the couloirs which gives the mountain its name followed by a picture of the Bowl of Tears.
I have always felt that it is a shame that no picture I take captures the true scale of these things. Each of the mountain pictures encompasses between 1500 and 4500 feet of vertical elevation, compare that to a world class skyscraper at around 2000 feet. You simply can not begin to understand the depth to which these environments can move your soul and make you truly awe at the grandeur of creation unless you are in them. Perhaps that is why I choose to work an extra 3 or so hours into the early morning to free my Saturdays for hiking.
Anyways, we set out from the bowl and attempted to find the entrance to the Cross Couloir. We headed up through and ever steepening and narrowing set of cliff ledged until coming to a rock fall blocked path.
Considering the several hundred foot drop to the right I that we take off our bags and crawl through. We headed through and after scrambling up some very unsteady rocks perched over a cliff ledge came to what we believed was the entrance to the couloirs. I wasn't sure if we had found the place as it was a 30 or so foot descent straight down on a snow covered face. I didn't want to risk Jen climbing this so we headed back to the Bowl of Tears to try a different approach.
We found another couloirs which we could use to ascend. This one required a bit of walking across snow which was several hundred feet up and at a goodly little angle. My knees were starting to hurt as I forgot my brace (the last time I hope) so I was a bit grumpy at this point.
Here is Jen coming down the end of the snow.
We left the snow and headed for the top of the couloir. Let me tell you, this was rough. It was steep and unrelenting. Towards the top we began kicking boulders down which you could here falling for all of a minute with the sounds of there tumbling echoing across the expanse below. Right below the peak the footing became bad enough we opted to leave the couloirs and climb this instead.
Once above the couloir we found ourselves on a snow covered ridge which stretched for about a half a mile before the peak. The ridge was cooold and the wind was gusting fiercely. We stopped to put on hats, gloves, etc and waded through snow which ranged from six inches to 2 feet deep.
We summated and quickly left as the weather was beginning to turn. Unfortunately I did not trust my cameras durability enough to get a good peak picture.
The hike down was long and after the ascent quite arduous. My knee was shot to shit at this point and the six miles back was quite miserable as each step was an agony. I will not forget that brace again! (It shows a real hikers mindset that I am already thinking of my next mountain :)
It was interesting to take some picture of sites we had seen on the way up to show how quickly Colorado weather can change.
We got back to the car around 6:30 and headed home. I spent the next day studying and dreaming of my next hike.