"Finnegan Peak" 13,346'
Gold Dust Peak 13,380
Point 12,525'
New York Mountain 12,550'
10 Miles 6,000' ish
Class 4-5.0?
10:40 RT
Brian Kalet and Forrest Thorniley
MAP
I want me Gold! Is what it felt like at times, as I was a bit obsessed with this peak. Over the last couple years I had been driving by and getting glimpses of the north face during my regular trips to the Parachute area. At first I was set on a snow climb and ski of the north face ramp. I made an attempt in 2008 but only managed to reach the summit of NY Mtn. This only increased my desire. Give me me Gold!
I came to the realization that while the north face did look like a good ski, and usually holds snow well into August, I would instead opt for a traverse around NY Lake, picking up a beautiful 13er that no one seems to climb much. Indeed, it was the least climbed peak on Lists of Johnup to that point. But my first close up view of the ridge made my jaw drop a bit. Id better find a partner.
Last week I had to make a work sponsored trip to Moab, and had monday as a drive day. Definitely had to cash in on that, so I sent Brian Kalet an email asking if he wanted to join (thinking he still lived in Grand Junction). He had moved to Ft Collins, but due to some work issues, he was onboard!
I left my house around 2:30 AM to meet up with Brian at the NY Lake TH near the Polar Star inn at 5:30AM, which serves as a for rent ski hut in the winter. We packed our bags with a small rope and a bit of gear just in case, and left the TH at 6 and followed the trail as it dropped conveniently down towards NY Lake.
We crossed to the lakes east side and picked a talus gully to ascend the west slopes of Finnegan Peak. We followed these slopes for awhile until we reached some solid rock, and climbed that to the ridge crest, north of the summit. From here it was an easy scramble to the top, and as Ken says, it's a winner.
Clouds filled the sky but nothing looked threatening so we began the descent along the south ridge of Finnegan. Not long after we left the introduction was over, a steep step down along the ridge with a huge drop on the left, and a dont fall drop to the right. We made the careful descent, Brian accidently pulling off a handhold that went for a ride. We took a breath and continued on.
This would prove to be the crux of the indirect traverse, as we contoured around most of the spires along the ridge. We stayed along the crest of the ridge maybe 40% of the time, usually going to the right (west) side when things got too difficult.
Many of the towers were a bit to loose for my taste. The one spire I wanted to climb I will call "banded spire" due to its stripe of lighter rock going across its top. This looked a bit too dangerous as well, so we traversed along its west side. This spire was essentially the last one before we hit the low point along the ridge, and began our ascent of Gold Dusts North Face.
An arrete of sorts heads directly from the ridge to the east summit of GD, but we went a bit climbers right of that. This was a fun climb, with pretty solid rock for the Sawatch.
During our climb we crossed over many pieces of airplane debris from an unfortunate event on April 2nd, 1997. We also crossed many bolts placed along the cliff, some with webbing and biners still attached. Given the random nature of the placements, I assumed they were for lowering debris from the mountainside. We finished up our climb of the face, crossing a small snow slope I was glad to have my axe along for. We could have joined the ridge sooner and avoided snow alltogether.
Once on the summit of Gold Dust (I got me gold!) we were pleased to see the weather still holding. It was now 12:45, 3 hours and 45 minutes after leaving the summit of Finnegan, without the spires! We made a descending traverse around point 12,911' to its south side, and found some nice grassy ramps to gain access to the east side.
A direct traverse to 12911 looked fun, but we were about scrambled by that point. We continued our traverse along the ridge and made the easy ascent of Point 12,525' where we found a Garratt register from '88. This summit gave us a great profile of the ridgewe just traversed. From here the ridge again looked spicy over to NY, so we opted for the grass meadows to the east which we dropped afew hundred feet to access. From here it was an huff to the final summit of the day NY Mountain, where I began my trek a year ago...
Thanks for joining me Brian!
(details are pretty vague in this report for a reason.... :) )
Id like to hear of a direct traverse someday :eek: and the difficulty of the "banded spire" inparticular!
More photos:
http://www.forrestthorniley.com/nylaketraverse.htm
