Mt. Sherman Trip Report
Trail: Fourmile Creek 1, Class 2, 8 miles, 2800 ft elevation gain
Mt. Sherman is supposedly the easiest 14'er in Colorado and while this is undoubtedly true it has been a mountain I didn't summit until my fourth attempt. The first time I went to climb Sherman I couldn't get anywhere on the access road near Fairplay as my little Ford does very badly in deep snow and I was turned back without even starting. The next two times I attempted to climb Sherman I tried beginning from the Leadville approach but as it was January snow and ice conditions ultimately turned me back both times. The funny thing was that I tried two consecutive weeks in a row (once with a group and once solo) and failed both times but I was so annoyed that I that I set out once again the very next week. This time I started from the Fairplay side and my trip ended up with a genuine winter summit.
Anyway, it was February 7th, 2004 and Jen, myself, and my friend Brian set out in Brian's 4-wheel drive SUV. Brian had come with us two weeks before when we had been turned back by a steep icy slope ( and no crampons or axes). I was happy he was seeing through an attempt at resummiting as the only other time he came along for a successful 14'er turned a bit nasty (See the Torrey trip report). We arrived at the old Leavick Mine at about 11:00 to beautiful weather. I was pretty psyched because its been some months since my last 14'er and this was my first in winter.
The hike from Leavick mine was pretty easy for the first 2.5 miles as it followed a 4-wheel drive road up to a bunch of old abandoned mines. The road was snow covered enough that we used our snow-shoes, we could have gotten by without them but that would have tired us out. Once we got up above the road we hiked across a couple slopes of snow where I had to kick steps in some places. We then turned west and headed up a snowy slope until we reached the hilltop mine area.
Unfortunately for all of us it had snowed some since the latest 14erworld.com trip reports and the usual class 2 trail up to the saddle between Mt. Sherman and Mt. Sheridan had been snowed over and it was impossible to up climb without crampons which we had decided to leave at home. The initial consensus had been that if the route required crampons we would skip it. At this point in my climbing career I'd rather play it safe until I have had some professional courses on items like climbing, avalanches, etc. I hope to slowly take these course to make myself a better mountaineer.
In any event we ended up having to wind our way up a very steep slope which brought us near to the top of the ridge which lead to the summit. This was very slow going as the slope angled upwards of 50 to 60 degrees in places and was covered with enough snow that the route finding to places with bare rock was quite difficult. This climb also taught me that it is very easy to lose your acclimatization to altitude as I ended up sucking some serious wind. I reached the ridge first and waited for Jen and Brian to make their way up. The picture below doesn't do justice to how steep the slope was.
While waiting I snapped a picture of the saddle we avoided climbing up. The walk on the saddle to the ridge was fine but if you look at the left hand side you can see the snow that prevented our direct ascent to the saddle from the mine.
Here is a picture of the Leadville side which I had turned back from the week before due to deep snow.
When Jen and Brian reached the Ridge we set out towards the peak of Mt. Sherman.
We reached the top pretty quickly and had a nice chat with a couple of guys named John and Van who were mountaineers from the CMC. They told me they had come up from Leadville and had taken hours getting through the snow I had previously turned back in. Hearing that, I felt I had made the right choice the previous week. Here is a nice view of Mt. Massive from the peak.
Here is Brian and Jen at the top and also a group picture.
It was about 3 or so when we summated and it had taken much longer than we had thought plus we were all surprisingly tired so we headed back.
The way down was about as annoying as the way up and we had to be cautious to find a safe way down. We had unanimously decided that our way up was much to dangerous to descend and we spent some time mulling over how to get down safely. We managed to head halfway down the ridge to a point much closer to the saddle than we had ascended before having to cut off trail. This made our descent to Hilltop mine much easier than the ascent had been. We were lucky to find a much less steep slope (Jen picked it out for us) and we slowly and carefully wound our way down the snow kicking steps where necessary and often sinking to our knees. All in all I was pretty happy that we hadn't resorted to axeless glissading (I'll never leave my axe home again).
At this point it was nearing 5 as the descent had taken some time and we were all feeling very tired from so much steep climbing through snow. We pounded on down to the 4 wheel drive gate and paused for some water and peanuts. From this point out we set out for the car as quickly as possible. We ended up walking in the dark some but both Jen and I had our headlights so this wasn't to big an issue. We finally got back to the car at 6. I can honestly say I have never been as tired from a 14'er before. I guess it was not being used to the altitude because I have kept active with allot of hiking, snow shoeing, and cross country skiing. I would normally have finished this hike in about 3 or 4 hours, the 7 it took really surprised me.
We made the long drive back to Boulder where we all split a couple of pizzas and then passed out. It was rough but it was also great to be back out on the mountains again. I am thinking of trying Huron in a couple of weeks with my friend Chris who is experienced in winter safety.