Last week
Super Dave sent out an open invitation to join him as he climbed his last
two White Cloud 10K peaks. I couldn’t
make it for Friday’s climb, but was a bit interested in joining him for the Saturday
adventure. After a bit of his convincing, I
finally agreed to join him for his last White Cloud peak. I’m always up for an adventure and rather
than climbing a single peak, Dave proposed a four peak day.
I jumped out
of bed when the alarm sounded at 2:30AM, and after a 3 hour drive, we met up at
Smiley Creek Lodge for the 40 minute drive to the trailhead.
We were
cruising up the excellent Galena Gulch trail a little after 7AM with headlights
blazing. And I do mean cruising, as we covered
this initial 4 miles and 1400 feet in an hour and a half. We took a quick break where the trail turned
south as our peak, “Simpson Peak” or Peak 10,378, was to the north.
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| Boulder Mountains |
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| Tarn with Simpson Peak |
The views of
the Boulder Mountains, as well as Simpson Peak, were spectacular in the early
morning fall sunshine. As we made our
way north, we walked around a small tarn in a meadow before starting up the
side of Simpson Peak. Before we knew it, we were on top of our first peak for the day.
From this summit we had an outstanding view of Castle Peak as well as
our next objective – “Anonymous Peak”.
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| Castle Peak |
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| Anonymous Peak |
Knowing that
we were in for a long day, we didn’t linger on the top for too long. The route to peak #2 was across a ridge with
a large gendarme. Having walked this
ridge before, Dave knew that the left side would go, so we stayed left. After tiptoeing our way around the gendarme,
it was just a straightforward walk up to the summit of Peak 10,356 (Anonymous
Peak).
The summit of Anonymous Peak provided a great
view of our third peak for the day – Alta Peak or Peak 10,660 (The topo shows
this as Peak 10,621 but List of John says 10,660). With its rocky ridge, this peak looked like
it would be a lot of fun. We stayed on
the ridge crest as much as possible and enjoyed a fun class three scramble to
the summit.
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| Alta Peak |
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| Scrambling up Alta's summit - D. Pahlas photo |
At this
point, Dave’s main goal was in sight; his final peak needed to finish off all
the White Cloud peaks over 10,000 feet – Peak 10,340. It, too, looked like it would be a fun climb.
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| The main objective to the left |
But first we
had to get down off Alta Peak. The
down climb provided a bit of route finding mixed in with a couple class 4ish
moves on some semi-solid rock. Spicy!
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| Down climbing Alta - D. Pahlas photo |
Once off
Alta Peak, we moved quickly across the ridge toward our last objective. I took a short break, while Dave moved off to
finish up some paper work. He seemed to
have been doing a considerable amount of paper work during the day…
Up close,
Peak 10,340 looked like a mass of loose boulders just waiting for a strong wind
to blow it down. It appeared that the
best route to the top was straight up a rib that was between two chutes filled
with loose rubble. With Dave leading, we
carefully picked our way up this rib to the summit. Just before I topped out, I heard a loud, “WooHoo!” signifying Dave had completed his goal.
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| Peak 10,340 |
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| Finishing off Peak 10,340 - D. Pahlas photo |
Unlike the
other peaks we had been on today, this one did not have a summit register. Unfortunately, we did not come prepared to
place a register. Luckily, I had a
toilet paper cardboard tube in my pack.
Not the most elegant, but it would have to do. Dave named the peak, “Grand Finale Peak,” in
honor of it being his last White Cloud 10K peak. After writing all the pertinent information
on the cardboard tube, Dave placed the summit register, and we then picked our way
down the rubble on the backside of the peak.
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| 4 Summit Splattskis |
Two hours
later we arrived back at the vehicle, tired but satisfied with our efforts for
the day.
Another
great adventure with Dave!
Stats:
Distance:
~13 miles
Elevation
Gained: ~4500 feet
Time: 10
hours car to car
