September 10, a fine fall day, and I was visitin’ my cousin, Steve for a few days in Denver, and so decided to tag with him on some type of mountain traverse. This here’s Cletus, and Steve’ll be mad as a badger to see i done commandeered his email account.
So we get to Montgomery Reservoir and head up the jeep road. There’s a sign, “No camping,” and then there’s no more signs for miles. I account this a failure on the part of the Forest Service for, if one were to come here with a gun outside of huntin’ season, what the hell would ya shoot? They need more signs. Anyhow, back to the jeep road – it’s badass! This here’s the second set of obstacles:
Yep, that’s a big puddle of blood below that gnarly expanse of rock! I bet plenty of people have messed their drawers takin’ their rigs up this thing, and I ain’t sure who bled out what. Anyhow, Steve’s pals call his Rav 4 the “honey badger.” That dumb rice burner would be a busted up armadillo tryin’ to get up this road.
The next sight to see was the biggest kettle corn kettle I’ve seen:
Obviously I know it’s a piece of mining equipment and not some kettle corn contraption. I noticed Colarada folks don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. Anyhow, not sure what it’s for, but you’re damn straight it must’ve been made in the US of A to still be standing out here, exposed to the elements, for all these years.
Soon after this we passed some hunters who were after goats. Then, before we knew it, we was at Wheeler Lake. Something Steve read on 14ers.com told him to go around to the right side of the lake, even though he could see a trail on the left. In case you read that same bad advice, ignore it and walk left around the lake’s west end. Steve was here over 10 years ago and said there used to be an old box springs and a really old car/truck frame. They wasn’t there anymore. Damn looters. It’s a damn shame you about have to make a place a national park to preserve its wonders.
As we made our way around to the north side of the lake and then up toward the narrow upper basin below Wheeler, I kept lookin’ back at the purty lake.
We got higher, and Steve got ahead of me. I think he thought it’s cuz he lives here and I’m not acclimated, but i’s really cuz I just kept lookin’ back, like this here view down to the lake and across to Mt Lincoln (I’d of preferred a mountain named after Andrew Jackson, but it’s still nice).
Above Wheeler Lake, we came to a small pond and a trail led around its east side. A few hundred feet above that, the trail disappeared and we just moved upward, over big blocky rocks. Talus, Steve called it. Dumb fancy mountaineering words.
Above the talus, some of the terrain was downright unpleasant: loose dirt and scree. Eventually, we got to the ridge. Then we got right back down off it because it reared up into this nasty tower of big black blocks, so we went back down a bit before getting back on top again. This part involved some hand and foot scamperin’; class 3 on the YDS, as Steve educated me.
After that bit, we reached a spot with big stick and some wire attached to it, but that weren’t the highest point and Steve pushed on to the true summit.
We didn’t stay there long, even though it was a nice sunny day, without too much wind. We backtracked a bit and then Steve took us down on the east side (the ridge to the top of Wheeler is a sort of out and back north from the main ridge that runs east over to North Star). I suggest you do not do as Steve took me on this east side, but be sure to backtrack past the false summit with the stick before heading east. Steve’s way, while shorter, saved no time because we had to manage our way down ledges covered in kitty litter.
After this, the real traversin’ began in earnest. At a spot where the ridge rose up and veered left, we could see the low point far off, down and straight ahead, so we left the top for gully on our right.
Our gully began easy enough, but it got steeper and bit overhung toward the bottom. Here’s a look back at our “easy class four” downclimb, as Steve termed it. I expect him to buy me new jeans, since I ripped a hole in the ass doing it.
After this, we moved gradually to regain the ridge in order to pass beneath a giant arrowhead-like formation and other difficulties along the top. In the picture below, the spot where we climbed back up is just left of the wide gully in the middle.
After all that, it seemed like we should reach North Star in no time, but the rest of the way took much longer than we expected. Twenty minutes toilin’ along that ridge brought us to the fun climb shown below, and the top felt so close.
Unfortunately, after gettin’ to the top of that beauty, the ridge stretched on ahead, No more scramblin’ for us, but just a walk up a steady incline of ridge that consumed a half hour. All in all, it took us 1 hour 40 minutes from the summit of Wheeler to the summit of North Star. But oh what mighty purty views we had from North Star! Here’s a look back to Wheeler Lake, and the little pond above it (I named it Hub Pond).
One of them points beyond the scruffy cliffs above Hub Pond is Clinton Peak. Steve calmed down my blood pressure by tellin’ me it was named before Bill and Hillary was known, but still, the USGS oughta change it. Despite all that, this was my favorite view of the day.
From here on, nothing much of note. We pressed on the long ridge east from North Star before Steve took us down some stupid trajectory across talus and scree to regain the road. If he’d just stayed on top of the ridge, we’d have been able to traverse just a wee bit of that nonsense to intersect a jeep road that goes way up high, nearly to the ridge. And that jeep road comes right back down to the main road from Montgomery, as shown in my photo here, taken on the way back (iit’s a hairpin to the right on the way up). So much for him climbing 300 “thirteeners:” it don’t seem to have teached him much.
All in all though, a fine, beautiful day. If my cousin forgives me after reading my post, I’ll be back another summer to enjoy some more of this mountaineering type stuff.
Thanks for readin’.