Gladstone Peak (13,913 feet)   by  Brian Schultz   July 29, 2005

Over the years Gladstone's been on my to do list but I always put it off for one reason or another. Last year when we were finally ready to climb it, owner Rusty Nichols closed access to the Silver Pick Basin, our intended route. We dejectedly drove to Bilk Basin to check out a different approach, which we ended up liking very much, but ran out of time and good weather for a summit bid, so we made plans to do that route again this year. This year, the owner issued an additional no-trespass notice on his mining claim on Gladstone's north ridge in an attempt to shut down access from Bilk Basin as well. This was very frustrating but not the end of the world because a fellow named Charlie Fowler mapped out a route handily avoiding his claim and we planned on using that route.

Shortly before I left Minnesota, Tim mentioned that Bilk Basin might still retain a fair amount of snow from the past winter which hammered the San Juans. I suggested we bring crampons just in case, but little did we know that the crampons would allow us to gain Gladstone's north ridge without having to drop to the Navajo Basin side for Charlie Fowler's route.

After our climb on Thunder Pyramid yesterday, Tim, Jason, and I each made the long drive to Ridgway and met up at the former Super 8 motel, now called the Ridgway Lodge and Suites. It's not the most convenient location for a climb of Gladstone but our upcoming climbs of Dallas and Teakettle made it a logical choice and we turned in early for an expected long day. It's no fun getting up around 3:00 in the morning but we don't complain too much because we've had great success in making our summits over the years with the early starts.

The drive to Sunshine Mesa trailhead passed quietly in the dark morning with little conversation and after parking the truck, we began by headlamp at 5:10 AM. Clear skies gave hope for a good weather day as we set a fast pace on the Morning Star Mine road and arrived at the mine two miles later at 5:55. We were pleasantly surprised to see the foliage near the old trailer had been cut down to clearly show the Lizard Head trail because last year Tim and I fumbled around in the dark for some time trying to locate it. It only took an hour to reach timberline where we stopped for a 20 minute breakfast break and were treated to a nice view of Gladstone. After continuing on we hiked through the remains of an avalanche run- dirty compacted snow and scattered tree branches- and shuddered at the thought of how much snow the area received over the winter.

We followed the Lizard Head trail in lower Bilk Basin to the cut-off point for the upper basin. Last year, Tim and I headed straight up but decided to forego the steep grunt this year and talked Jason into staying on the old road as it switchbacked up to upper Bilk Basin. Upon arriving at 8:10 at the knoll above the lake, we took another 20 minute break to refuel and gaze at the remaining route. The views of Wilson Peak, Gladstone Peak, and Lizard Head are very nice from this vantage.

Tim's hunch about the snow in the area turned out to be correct. We took a circuitous route around the lake, first stopping to get a terrific shot of Lizard Head before heading up the rough terrain above the lake. Our memory of the route from last year served us well and we arrived at the same stopping point from that trip. And brought out the crampons. The incredible amount of snow on the flanks of the north ridge offered a straightforward means to gain the ridge beyond Rusty Nichols's mining claim. We noticed we weren't alone either. To the far left and just below the Gladstone's summit a skier was making a run down the steep slope.

This was Tim's first experience with crampons and my second, my first being on California's Mt Shasta. This turned out to be just as fun as Shasta. It was a thrill to reach the ridge without having to drop into Navajo Basin on the other side and it saved us the extra mileage and elevation gain on Charlie Fowler's route. Speedy Jason waited on the ridge for Tim and me to catch up. I got ahead of Tim and as I headed up the ridge, I was thinking how well everything was going. Foolish thought because seconds later the rocks below me gave way and I fell backwards, riding on top of a bed of rocks and unable to grab anything because everything was moving. I managed to stop about ten feet later and only suffered a badly scratched leg but it was a helpless feeling for those few seconds wondering how far the slide would take me. It was a scary introduction to the loose and steep north ridge.

In my opinion, the ridge was even worse than what we did on Thunder Pyramid yesterday. You can take the "hidden horror" description of Thunder Pyramid and apply it to Gladstone as well because of all the loose, sharp junk on the ridge. We scrambled along the east side just below the top of the ridge thinking it would be easier than the top, and it worked out okay, but the top was actually better as we found out later on the descent. Below the false summit I took the lead and found a reasonable but still extremely steep route up, and scrambled up to the summit at 11:10 just ahead of Tim and Jason. This was a hard fought summit to attain and we reveled at our good fortune at making it, and also for the nicely holding weather and views. The summit canister was unusual- it was metal- and only five people had signed in this year. One of them was the skier we saw earlier, who signed his name as HAI-ME. We found out the next day on our Dallas climb that he's a popular Telluride local and a ski nut, and whose name is actually Jaime. He spelled his name phonetically in the register.

Thirty five minutes on the summit was enough- we had a difficult descent ahead of us and wanted to get off the ridge before any potential weather developed and made it even worse. On the descent, we found that staying right on top of the ridge worked out well even though it was slow and very exposed. As we made our way down, Jason informed us he was doing a glissade at the first opportunity. Tim and I were uncomfortable with the steep slope he picked so we watched him as he quickly glissaded into the basin. We dropped further down the ridge before picking out our glissade routes. After my stunt on Casco trying to glissade with just trekking poles, I used my axe on this descent and all was fine until I hit a hard patch of snow. I immediately arrested but the axe spike jumped up and whacked me in the ribs. The blow hurt badly. I couldn't sleep on my left side that night because of the pain and I worried about how it would affect my climbing on Dallas Peak in the morning.

We made it back to the knoll above the lake at 2:00 and once again took a break. The weather never turned on us so a more leisurely pace afforded lots of photo stops of flowers in the basin, as well as in the lower elevations where columbines abounded. We passed several young people milling about at the mine and strolled back to the truck at 4:05. What a great day and a great feeling to finally get Gladstone Peak, definitely one of the hardest centennial peaks I've done.

Trailhead to summit- 6 hours

Summit to trailhead- 4 hours 20 minutes

Start to finish- 10 hours 55 minutes

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