Grizzly Peak (13,988 feet) by Brian Schultz Tuesday July 26, 2005
I wouldn't drive a two wheel drive car to the McNasser Gulch trailhead at 10,740 feet- the road has obviously deteriorated since the Roaches wrote their thirteener guidebook and it's pretty bad. Art, Mark, and I drove to the 4WD trailhead at 11,360 feet in Art's truck.
The East Ridge route from the 4WD trailhead to the summit is a short one- less than three miles- and I didn't expect a very long day on Grizzly unless we climbed Garfield Peak also. We began under wonderfully clear skies at 6:15 from the gate and hiked the road to the mine at 12,000 feet, where the road continues but not the route. We left the road and hiked west into the basin, with Grizzly and Garfield peaks looming ahead as we traversed the steepening slopes of Grizzly's east ridge. At 12,500 feet we turned north and pushed up rough terrain to 13,400 feet where all went well until Art and Mark decided a large snowbank crossing was too risky for their comfort. Calling it a day, they settled down for a break and watched me kick-step carefully into the soft snow and proceed up the ever steepening ridge. I crossed one more snowbank before the angle eased and from there just a short slog remained to the summit ridge above.
The route to the summit was easy from the ridge. I followed a good dirt trail on the backside, climbed a short but moderately rough section to the top, and at 9:38 claimed Colorado's highest centennial peak. The weather was absolutely perfect but not wanting to keep Art and Mark waiting, I only stayed 15 minutes and by the time I descended to the snowbank at 13,400 ft, they'd already descended the east ridge and were making their way to a waterfall in the basin. I passed on climbing Garfield because its gullies were full of snow (I left the axe in the car), and caught up to them before 10:30. With such fabulous weather and so much of the day remaining, we took off the packs and relaxed in the scenic basin for the next two hours. A solo hiker stopped and chatted a bit before heading up into the basin but we otherwise had the area to ourselves.
At 12:30 we reluctantly threw on the packs and headed down. We arrived at the truck at 1:40 where two guys on motorbikes stopped to talk, and on our drive out we checked out the La Plata trailhead for Art and Mark's upcoming climb in a few days. This was a great day to be in the mountains.
Trailhead to summit- 3 hours 23 minutes
Summit to trailhead- about 1 hour and 45 minutes of actual hiking time
Start to finish- 7 hours 25 minutes (includes two and a half hours of breaks)