Coxcomb Peak (13,656) by Brian Schultz Wednesday August 22, 2007
After meeting Tim in Gunnison we drove west on Hwy 50 to the Silver Jack Reservoir road. The excellent road, no problem for passenger cars, follows the Cimarron river and continues past the reservoir up the valley of the West Fork of the Cimarron river. This is an incredibly scenic valley. When we reached the rough road described as the trailhead by Garratt & Martin, I parked my rental and we continued on in Tim's truck to the trail register at the end of the road. After taking a few photos of Coxcomb, we returned to where I was parked and set up for the night.
We knew Coxcomb would be a challenging peak and hoped the trip reports we'd read didn't understate the difficulty of the climb. Our packs would carry climbing gear and we were prepared for expected rope work in both the gully and at the notch. I also loaded the summit waypoint in my GPS in case it was needed and as it turned out, this was a wise move. It saved us some confusion and time.
We awoke in the predawn morning and drove to the register, glad to have checked it out yesterday in the waning daylight instead of trying to find it in the pitch black. We were hoping the favorable weather forecast hadn't changed as we signed the register and set out at 4:05 AM with headlamps shining. The trail from the register is excellent and we saw a few bright animal eyes from the glare of our lamps while hiking through the trees. Thoughts of those eyes belonging to bears made us a little edgy as we hiked in the stillness of the morning, but they were probably just deer and we continued in the dark nonstop until reaching the pass at 12,500 feet. We stopped at 5:40 for a break and waited for the sun to rise, a very chilly wait, but we thought it best to have daylight for the routefinding ahead.
The descent from the pass took us near to what looked like a shortcut across the ridge. It was tempting but we continued down further before making the obvious left turn, a smart choice as the terrain where we would've cut over was quite sketchy. In the open area we checked the GPS because Tim wondered if the summit might be above us already, the cliffs giving the impression that it could be, but it wasn't. Coxcomb was further east.
We left the grassy slopes shortly and began angling up steep talus and scree. This was an extremely steep ascent and before we neared the walls of the cliffs above us, I slipped and gashed my leg. No worse for the wear, we continued on and contoured to the right just below the cliffs, following a faint trail until finding an opportunity to climb up through the cliff walls. As we neared the base of the summit-block cliffs at 13,300 ft, determining the correct couloir was fairly easy. It was described well by Garratt & Martin and the various trip reports and we started up the 4th class initial pitch at 8:15.
The climbing in the chimney was quite steep. I was uncomfortable wearing my pack and stowed it after we cleared the first of three class 5 sections, at a small alcove where we also had room to put on our harnesses. Tim led from here and handled the remainder of the chimney (the left fork) without having to set protection, and put me on loose belay after setting up safely at the top. Although I didn't feel a huge need for the rope, I certainly didn't mind the comfort of being roped in. The stemming moves in the chimney were lots of fun.
It was a great feeling to be out of the chimney (total length about 80 feet) and a short climb above it put us on the summit ridge. From there it only took a few moments to arrive at the crux of the climb, a thirty foot vertical notch. I had my doubts about doing it as Tim prepared to rappel the sheer drop, rated 5.6. Both sides at the small landing below it were exposed and the crack in the wall on the other side leading to the summit didn't look very appealing either. We could see the summit, so close and yet so far.
After Tim finished his rappel, I opted for a belay (enormously glad to have a rope here), and we left the rope in place while carefully working our way to the intimidating crack. The crack turned out to be much easier than it looked and once above it, we walked to the summit, arriving at 10:10 with big smiles on our faces. We were feeling pretty good about making Coxcomb, especially after turning back on Pilot Knob last year, and we reveled in the glory. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed the summit for nearly a half hour, fully aware that we still had a difficult descent ahead of us.
And so at 10:35, we began our return. The downclimb of the crack went fine and at the notch (photo 1, photo 2), I belayed Tim and then climbed up the notch on a loose belay. I believe it's the most vertical climb I've ever done on a peak. Then, at the top of the chimney we set up another belay and I went down first. I stopped at the alcove, set up and belayed Tim past me to a bigger landing below, then he belayed me all the way to the bottom of the base. I in turn belayed him and at 12:40 we were down. The rope work was slow but we weren't in a hurry and the 60 meter rope turned out to be just right to cover the entire chimney, including the 4th class pitch at the bottom.
We descended to easier terrain to recoil the rope and took a much deserved break. Neither of us wanted to descend our approach route so we took a mostly straight route down to Wetterhorn Basin below, which was still quite steep but at least had stretches of grass to offset the rock and dirt. The view of my favorite fourteener, Wetterhorn Peak, was quite impressive as we worked our way down into Wetterhorn Basin, a beautiful setting in its own right.
We angled over to pick up the trail below, took another break, and then followed it around the western ridge and back up to the 12,500 ft pass. The descent from the pass was slow on the steep switchbacks but once in the valley it went quicker. We made a mental note of where to leave the trail when we return to climb Redcliff in the future, and reached the register at 4:05.
The road out from Owl Creek Pass to Ridgway was excellent as well and we celebrated our success today with dinner at our favorite restaurant in town, the Adobe Inn. Our climb went mostly as expected but it rates as one of the hardest peaks I've ever done.
Trailhead to summit- 6 hours 5 minutes
Summit to trailhead- 5 hours 30 minutes
Start to finish- 12 hours