MT. BLAUROCK
(13,616')October 2, 2009
By Tim Briese
4.0 miles, 3000 ft. elevation gain, 6:20 roundtrip time
On a clear and cold October morning I headed to the mountains with my lab Allie to climb Mt. Blaurock. At the road junction in the center of Winfield I turned right on the North Fork Clear Creek road and drove 1.2 miles up the easy 4WD road to a minor stream crossing where Grey Copper Creek crosses the road. I continued 0.1 miles further and parked along the road at the edge of a broad sloping meadow.
I consulted my map and quickly identified Mt. Blaurock and Ervin Peak on the ridgeline above to the north. At 8:40 I struck off to the north and began bushwhacking up the broad ridge between the Grey Copper Creek and Black Bear Creek drainages. The morning was clear and frosty and a moderate wind blew out of the west. I made good progress ascending mostly grassy slopes through intermittent trees. I held to the right of the center of the ridgeline to stay on more sparsely wooded slopes as much as possible. It was smooth sailing all the way up to about 12,500 feet. When I got above timberline I made it a little harder on myself than it needed to be by straying too far to the right of the crest of the ridge and getting onto some loose slopes. A partial snow cover on the rocks compounded the issue.
At 13,400 feet the ridge turned to the left for the remaining 0.3 miles to the summit, which lay at the northwest end of a series of false summits. Several inches of soft new snow partially covered the talus on the ridge, which made for very slow going. I proceeded carefully to avoid slipping, or even worse, injuring an ankle or leg by stepping into an unseen hole. I could tell that Allie wasn= t enjoying this part of the climb very much but she gamely followed along. This ridge would have been merely slowgoing in good conditions but it was quite tedious with the fresh snow partially covering the sometimes wobbly talus blocks.
I finally reached the summit at 12:15. It was cold and windy, with a temperature of 26 degrees. I didn= t even bother to sit down on the snowy rocks, but stood eating a sandwich as I gazed about at the scenery. Mt. Hope, Rinker Peak, and Huron Peak surrounded me in splendid array. Ervin Peak lay back to the east beyond the rough ridge I had come up. It might be a nice peak to climb in combination with Blaurock in good conditions, but I had no desire to tackle it today. I was unable to check out the summit register because it had gotten wet and was frozen in a solid cylindrical shape.
At 12:45 I began my descent. I did not care to retrace my steps along the snowy ridge I came up so chose instead to go down the easier west ridge to the saddle between Blaurock and the unnamed point to the west. From this saddle I dropped to the south on steep grassy slopes into the upper reaches of the Black Bear drainage, finding it necessary to skirt to the southwest around some cliff bands. Once I was in the drainage I made a gentle and enjoyable bushwhack down the pleasant grassy valley. This route might be a better way to climb Blaurock than the way I went up, I thought, although it is slightly longer and would require a bit more routefinding. When I reached timberline I contoured to the southeast to get back onto the broad south ridge I had come up. I could have probably gone all the way down the Black Bear drainage to the road but I was uncertain of the difficulties that route might entail. I essentially retraced my steps back down the slopes to my truck, where I arrived at 3 p.m.
This climb of Blaurock was a little harder than I expected due to the tedious upper ridge, especially with the coating of snow. The climb could simply be described as short, sweet, and steep.
It turned out that this was the last climb I did with Allie, my furry hiking and climbing companion of many years. She succumbed to an aggressive cancer about six weeks later. She and I hiked thousands of miles and climbed over a hundred peaks together over a twelve year period, and she will be sorely missed.
