White Rock A and Cache la Poudre Wilderness HP
Joe Grim, Luke Plumley and Sam Cox
4.4 miles
1705' elev. gain (15% avg. grade)
class 3
2 hours, 55 minutes

We started the hike under sunny skies and 31 degrees, parking at a small pulloff at the start of the eastbound section of the Old Flowers Road (N40.61678 W105.52275, WGS 84). We made our way up the gated Old Flowers Road, which soon wrapped its way around to north-facing slope, so that we had continual snowcover on the road. It wasn't deep enough to warrant snow shoes, but on the other hand, it was deep enough that we appreciated having gaiters. After hiking 1.6 miles up the road (N40.62087 W105.50147), we could see the light rocky slope of White Rock through the trees toward the north, and headed off the road toward it. As we approached the base of the rocky summit, we crossed a couple old roads used for the quarry at the west end of the peak, and soon we were at the base (N40.62291 W105.50067). To reach the summit, we climbed up its western spine, getting to do some class 3 climbing moves along the way. This little peak definitely lives up to its name, as it is characterized by very light pink (almost white) quartzite and light gray granite. At the top of the ridge there was several candidates for the true summit, and Luke determined using a hand level that the true summit was located at N40.62325, W105.49946. The views were absolutely awesome, highlighted by the beautiful snow-capped peaks of the Mummy Range toward the southwest and west. There were also neat views in every other direction: West White Pine Mountain towered above us to the southeast; to the north we could see across numerous lower peaks all the way to Wyoming; while to the northwest we could see the Bald Mountain complex (my personal favorite complex of mountains.) After enjoying the views there for about 10 minutes, we headed down toward our next destination to the north, the unnamed and unranked highpoint of the Cache la Poudre Wilderness Area.

After a steep little climb down from White Rock, the rest of the route to the highpoint was pretty easy through somewhat open forest, and we soon made it to the flat ridge where the wilderness HP lay. There were numerous rock outcrops that jutted up from the ridge, so we went to each of them to guarantee that we had hit the high point. We are nearly certain though that the true highpoint is a 15' high rock outcrop on the eastern side of the ridge (N40.62707 W105.49946). Interestingly, this is located midway between the 8640' and 8680' contours on the USGS topo map, indicating a minor error in the topographic contours of the map. Luke used his hand level to compare it to other nearby rock outcrops and verified that it was the highest one within view. It was impossible to see a couple western rock outcrops through the trees, but those outcrops only rose ~5' from the level ridge, whereas this one rose ~15'. We each did a class 3 climb to the top of the rock outcrop, which had a wilderness sign planted in the top; this told us two things: 1) This point was indeed within the wilderness, although barely; and 2) even though we were the first to log this peak on LOJ, we weren't the first humans to ever bag this summit. Because of the surrounding tree tops, we only had somewhat open views from atop the rock outcrop. The best views from the summit area were on the northwest side (N40.62722 W105.50118), where a cliff allowed open views toward the north and west, including down to the rugged canyon of the South Fork of the Cache la Poudre River.

Instead of heading back the way we came, we decided to make a loop out of the hike and headed down the rocky ridgeline toward the west. This portion of the hike was the most fun for its route finding aspect, as we had to find our way down through numerous small cliff bands. The cliffs also afforded us frequent open views of the mountains to the south, west and north. Eventually, the cliffs became too numerous and high and we dropped down into the valley to the south. We continued to head west and soon began to ascend an unnamed and unranked knob (~8420'; N40.62317 W105.51570), in order to have a view back on our two peaks. We indeed had a nice open view of them, although we could only see the forested northern side of White Rock from our vantage point. We enjoyed most of all seeing the steep rocky ridgeline that we had descended from the wilderness HP.

From here, we made a quick descent toward the south back to the road, which we followed back to the car. Definitely a fun hike with some great guys.

For my photo slideshow of the hike click here.
For Sam's trip report and even better photos click here.
Below is a track of the hike

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