Staying High, Independence Pass

As trip reports go, this isn't especially exciting.  Nothing went drastically wrong; the weather was downright pleasant throughout; and these mountains, I admit, don't typically rank especially high on people's SP bucket lists.  I'm posting it for two reasons: because it's a great (and highly accessible) route, which might well appeal to others, and because this trip was, for me, the fulfillment of a longstanding ambition. 

 

I live on the East Coast, so perhaps the smartest thing I ever did was marry a Coloradan, meaning that, courtesy of a family home in the center of the state, I have regular access to some of N America's finest mountains.  We visit en famille every summer for a couple of weeks (being a Brit, I never learnt to ski, so winters are less enticing).  My mountain ambitions have been governed to a major extent by the capabilities -- read, state of development -- of my offspring, twin females currently 16.  For several years, every summer we would hike the "Lost Man Loop" on the Aspen side of Independence Pass.  This is a well-known and popular hike to a couple of alpine lakes, Lost Man Lake and Independence Lake, and over the 12,800' pass between them.  Because it starts high, it's a painless way to spend time in a spectacular alpine area.  The trail gives good access to the surrounding tops, and Geissler Mtn E, 13,380', was Katie's first 13-er -- a short scramble up from the Lost Man Pass -- back in 2006.  Eventually, however, trails get boring, and we started instead to do a high route over the three peaks of Geissler Mountain which would bring us down to the Lost Man Pass, from where we would head down the Lost Man trail to the Linkins Lake trailhead.  Easy, accessible, and with great views, this "Geissler traverse" is one of my favorite hikes and a summer fixture for the family.  I've written it up, in fact, for SP; a route that has garnered precisely zero entries in the page's climber's log!

 

According to Kane, the trickiest part of the traverse was the north ridge of Pt 13,545, but there was plenty more class 3/4 and exposure in the section from Pt 13,545 to the low point of the ridge between Pt 13,545 and Twining Pk.  I did some reconnaissance.  One summer, with a lousy weather forecast for the afternoon, we went up to Twining Peak from Independence Pass.  We continued over Twining towards Pt 13,545 but bailed before we reached the low point of the ridge between the two tops.  I had a good view of the ridge to come but not good enough to determine whether or not the ridge was within my (and/or my girls') range.  We ended up scrambling down a rather steep gully above Independence Lake and walking back down the trail in pouring rain.  

 

 

Then, in summer '12, after completing our regular Geissler Traverse, Katie and I headed up from the Lost Man Pass to the continental divide.  Katie fell asleep in the sunshine, and I checked out Pt 13,545's north ridge.  Awkward in places, for sure, but that "committing and exposed class 4 move on dirty slabs of granite" was rather scarier in my imagination than it was in person.  I got to the top and surveyed the ridge to come, but I didn't want to drag Katie up there, so I headed back, awoke the slumbering teenager, and we dropped down in to the valley to pick up the Lost Man trail, as usual.

 

 

Enough reconnaisance!  Let's do it.

This year, 2013, would be the year I would finally connect all these segments in to a single trip.  21 June.  Good chance, I hoped, that the day would be fine throughout, as the area's pattern of afternoon thunderstorms tends to kick in a little later in the summer.  Katie was in Madrid on a Spanish exchange, so it would be just Megan and me.  We parked at the Linkins Lake trail head at around 7.  (Ah, the joys of a house in the mountains: no sleeping in the back of the car for me).  The first part of the trip is very familiar: up the trail to Linkins Lake.  Not very much snow this year, but still a little ice on the lake.  

 

Our first top was Geissler SW, where the day's ridge-walking started in earnest.  Like any and all SP-ers, I like a peak as much as the next person, but the greatest pleasure mountains can provide comes, in my opinion, in the form of ridges.  You're high, the views are ever present, you're probably going up and down but you're not typically looking at very prolonged bouts of either, and there's the challenge of following the ridge when gendarmes block the way.  To treat a peak with the respect any and all mountains deserve, I prefer to traverse it -- ie descend by a route different from the one by which I've ascended -- and that's what ridges do for you.  

 

There's nothing especially challenging about the Geissler ridges -- there are occasional segments of 2+ but nothing more -- but it's a wonderfully rewarding walk.  

 

There's a summit register on Geissler W (there's also supposed to be one on Geissler E, but I don't recall ever finding one.  There's typically a lot of snow on that summit so it's probably still buried when I'm there) and I was sorry to find that it had gotten wet. Very wet.  All that remained was a mush of paper.  Sorry to say good bye to that as it has served almost as a private log of family trips.  Here, complete with Katie's unhelpful comments, is a photo of the register in 2010.