Ice Mountain (13,951) by Brian Schultz Monday September 30, 2002
In Buena Vista, Tim and I discussed our upcoming Ice Mountain climb and agreed if conditions weren't good for climbing it we'd settle for North Apostle. Both are centennial thirteeners and with North Apostle rated class 2, we felt confident about handling it, especially after just doing the difficult north ridge on Democrat. When we went out to eat later in the evening, the steady rain had us wondering how much it was snowing on the high peaks.
Usually when we get up in the morning we're the only ones milling around but today the Super 8 lobby was crowded. The manager had food out early and we ate breakfast before driving to Winfield. We were dismayed to see the whole area around Winfield covered with fresh snow and it got worse while driving up the four wheel drive road. All the tree branches were so weighted down with snow that they hung over the road and dumped their loads on the windshield as we rammed through them. Between that distraction and the snow cover on the road we somehow turned up a side road and had to backtrack. It was the beginning of a day that just didn't go right.
We parked at the gate where several inches of snow on the ground hinted at what our day would entail. Tim put on his snow boots, I put on my gaiters. We left at 7:40 and bashed through drooping snow-covered branches like those on the road. Tim whacked them with his poles to clear the snow so it wouldn't fall on us and we laughed at discovering a handy new use for them.
Our jovial mood changed when we reached the trail junction. The Roach description indicates following the Lake Ann trail and then turning left onto the Three Apostles trail, which is confirmed also by the Trails Illustrated topo map, but we couldn't find it. Maybe it was a lightly treaded path and the snow was disguising it but we made several false starts and came up with nothing. We went back to the junction, took the other trail marked Apostle Basin for a ways but it didn't correspond to the directions or the map so we turned around from there too. One more attempt to find it on the Lake Ann trail left us shaking our heads. Where was the trail? It seemed like we were wasting lots of time looking for something that wasn't there.
We decided our best option was to take the Lake Ann trail for a while, pick a point to leave it, and then bushwhack to the basin between Ice Mountain and North Apostle. If we could get there, the remaining route would be obvious. With that, we started up the trail, made our exit, and began a journey through deep snow in the woods with no cairns or markers to aid us. Our progress was so slow and time consuming I began to wonder if we'd find the basin, let alone climb the peaks. We descended into a drainage, crossed a stream, and climbed up an incredibly steep bank on the other side. Somehow we managed to get out of treeline and, surprise, right into the basin ahead. The time was 10:00.
We took a food break and pondered our chances. Both of us were willing to push on but the snow was getting much deeper and time was not in our favor. As we worked up into the basin, we had to plant each step very carefully because we didn't know how far down the rocks were under the snow. We stopped at 11,500 feet in the basin, frustrated at how slow we were moving and worried about slipping and breaking an ankle. It was 11:00, and in over three hours we'd only gained 900 feet elevation from the trailhead. Terrible progress- and we still had over two thousand feet to get to either of the summits. Even though the weather was clearing we ruled Ice out. We could do North Apostle, but at this slow rate we might not get back to the basin before dark. We still didn't know where the correct trail was and if we couldn't find it we'd be bushwhacking in the dark. That wasn't a pleasant prospect and since we'd have to come back another time to climb Ice anyway, I leaned for just calling it a day.
It wasn't that easy for Tim. In five years of climbing peaks together we've never been turned back from a summit. We took our chances last year and succeeded on Cathedral but this time the weather played out its hand. We knew the right thing to do was to turn around but we had to stand there a while and lament the end of our streak. We left the basin at 11:13 and found the correct trail at timberline. It's a good one and surprisingly comes out on the Apostle Basin trail but it's not very obvious. There was a flag hanging in a tree that we saw in the morning and believed to be only a regular trail marker so we didn't pay much attention to it. But it identified where to exit the trail and cross the stream to the Three Apostles trail, which is located between that crossing and another stream. It's confusing but at least we know the route now and next time we'll get an early summer start and go for both peaks. We got back to the truck at 1:45 and on the drive out saw some decent fall colors.
Total hiking time- 6 hours 5 minutes including breaks