Mt. Princeton Trip Report
Trail: Mt. Princeton Road, Class 2, ~8 miles, 3800 ft elevation gain
Jen and I set out of the house at about 4:30 in the morning on Saturday, May 29th, 2004 for what I hope will represent the first of many weekends up in the mountains. We had decided on Mt. Princeton as the target of the day. I liked the idea of hitting Princeton for several reasons. Firstly it is a relatively easy mountain, second recent trip reports indicated that the trailhead was accessible and last, I had turned back on Princeton a couple of months ago when my a couple of my hiking companions lost their nerve crossing several steeper and relatively solid snow fields. This time I decided to bring along crampons in case we encountered such flows again.
Jen and I arrived up at the radio towers at about 8:00 and after suiting up started the walk up the road.
We made easy time as the road was mostly clear of snow except for one large flow about the third switchback up which we avoided by climbing straight up the rocks next to it. We arrived at the junction where you can choose to either go directly up Tigger Peak or around it and approach Princeton's Summit from the regular trail. We opted to skip Tigger.
The trail to Princeton had a couple of snow flows still on it but the snow was relatively easy to walk across and while we used the ice axes for safety they weren't really necessary.
Slightly before the point where you head up to the saddle connecting Princeton and the ridge from Tigger we encountered a snow field that was not solid enough to use crampons on but seemed to be of just the right consistency and steepness that a fall might be a possibility. Since the snow was pretty mushy I didn't think the ice axes would bite in well enough to quickly self arrest so we decided to skip crossing it and head directly up to the ridge.
For the most part this consisted of walking up a steep slope of rocks with the occasional snow traverse, the rocks were a bit loose but it was nothing dangerous or hard just occasionally slippery.
Just before the ridge we came to a point where we had maybe a 100 feet left to go but it was entirely snow covered. By this point the sun had melted the snow enough that postholing up a ~50 degree snowfield was not going to happen. We instead cut horizontally across maybe 100 yards of snow to gain a lower point on the ridge. This trek was really, really irritating. Every step resulted in going up to our waists, digging a foot out, throwing it forward, and sinking again. It took about 20 minutes to cross what otherwise should have taken one minute.
I think Jen was a bit under the weather and this killed the day for her because she ultimately choose to wait for me below the summit. Anyways once on the ridge it was just a matter of time before I reached the summit, the final approach is your typical steep Sawatcher, but thankfully, it lacked intervening peaks or false summits. I was pretty tired and had recently badly hurt my shoulder so I wasn't up for anything crazy. There is a little bit of snow up at the very top but it was solid and I walked right over it and arrived at the summit at about 11:00. Here are views from the top.
Mt. Antero
The ridge between Princeton and Tigger. You can see the trail which goes below the ridge and some of the fields we had to cross.
Another approach to Princeton.
After a few minutes I started to head down because it was hailing and the wind was picking up very nicely. I met Jen on the way down and we decided to head back over the ridge to Tigger. Once we reached Tigger peak we contoured down the NE face directly to the trail rather than take the long ridge walk back to the 4WD road. This turned out to take longer than expected as it was steep and had enough loose rocks to keep us on our toes. It was fun to be doing some mild climbing though and we got to see a lot of marmots running about. Once back at the trail we quickly hiked down to the auto road and made it back to the car in no time. Our total round trip time was about six and a half hours. I think the whole thing would only take four hours without the snow but it was still nice to be outside and the snow which kept threatening never materialized into anything serious.
As a total aside my friends always joke with me about our car which I have dubbed "The Beast". We drive a 1998 Ford Escort with about 3 inches of ground clearance. At most trailheads people with their SUV's and 4WD trucks always compliment us that we make it to the top in our little car. It is always a nerve racking experience, we have blown a few tires in our day. The funniest thing we have done to date is shake the car badly enough that the check engine light came on one weekend only to be shaken right back off the very next.
On this trip we came across a guy whose Jeep Cherokee had gone off the road on his way up.
Apparently a couple of logs were all that was preventing this thing from one hell of a tumble. A couple of guys had already stopped and called a tow truck for him. I asked him if I could post the picture on our site and he smiled and said no problem. The whole drive down the road Jen had to keep getting out and tossing rocks out of the way so we wouldn't bust our drive shaft or oil pan or muffler or ....We can now joke that our car outperforms a Cherokee on 4WD roads, unfortunately something just keeps on rattling now everywhere we drive. Oh well, it was a great day and I am happy to be back in the mountains. I hope to do my first Sangre de Cristo mountain next week with Jen and my friend Brian. If the weathers not amiable then I'll head over to Huron or Missouri.