COLONY BALDY
(13,705')October 3, 2007
By Tim Briese
I attempted to climb Colony Baldy in September of 2006 but was turned back by excessive snow from an early season storm. On that attempt I followed the long route suggested by Garratt and Martin via Macey Lakes and hiked all the way up to the lakes before abandoning the effort. This time I planned to shorten the climb considerably by bushwhacking up the peak=s northeast ridge from the Rainbow Trail.
Today promised to be a beautiful fall day without a cloud in the sky. There was almost no snow up on the peaks yet, either, unlike last year. The only downside of this otherwise splendid day was high wind.
I left home early with my lab Allie and drove to the Horn Creek Trailhead a few miles southwest of Westcliffe, admiring the stately form of Colony Baldy as I approached. I left the trailhead at 8:20 and hiked a half mile up a rocky spur trail to get on the Rainbow Trail, the main hiking thoroughfare that runs for many miles along the eastern base of the Sangre de Cristos. Private property concerns prevent a direct approach to Colony Baldy at a point near its base, so a trek along the Rainbow Trail from the north or south is necessary to get to the peak. I went south on the trail and clipped rapidly along, enjoying intermittent stands of golden yellow aspens. In just over an hour I reached the junction with the Macey Lakes Trail, having covered about three miles from my truck and climbing about 900 feet of elevation gain so far. The lower slopes of Colony Baldy lay above to the southwest.
Instead of going up the Macey Lakes Trail as I did last year, I crossed the bridge over Macey Creek and continued south on the Rainbow Trail a short distance, looking for an opportune place to leave the trail and begin bushwhacking uphill to the right through the woods. After going about three tenths of a mile south of the bridge, at a point where the trail rounded the nose of the lower part of the peak=s northeast ridge, I left the trail and began hiking up through the trees to the west. The elevation was about 10,150 feet at the point where I left the trail. I stayed on or near the crest of the ridge for the most part. At first the hiking was quite easy on gentle grades, but after a while the ridge curved from the west around to the southwest and the grade stiffened a little. There was a faint climber=s trail visible in some places, indicating this route sees at least a few visitors. At about 10,800 feet I took a faint trail to the left that abandoned the crest of the ridge and did an ascending traverse to the south. After about a quarter of a mile this trail led me out of the woods at about 10,900 feet, where I found open grassy slopes above as far as I could see. While it is not essential to find this traverse, it nicely eliminates climbing up through the woods to timberline at about 11,500 feet if one were to stay on the ridge.
From the point where I stepped out of the woods I climbed southwest about a half mile up steep grassy slopes to gain the peak=s east ridge at 12,400 feet. A brutal west wind was hammering me all the way up, and it got only worse as I got higher. Once on the east ridge I climbed up easy grassy slopes toward the summit, which was about a mile away. I heartily leaned into the vicious wind to avoid being knocked down, coming close a couple of times. I tightly held on to my trekking poles so they wouldn=t be ripped from my grasp. Allie turned to look at me questioningly a couple of times, as if to say, AWe=ve got to be crazy to be up here today!@
I stepped on the broad summit about 12:30, and was thankful to find a summit rock pile to sit behind to gain some relief from the howling wind. The temperature was a brisk 43 degrees. The summit offered an incredible vantage point with spectacular views of the Crestones, Humboldt Peak, the Kit Carson group, and Mt. Adams. I briefly left the rock shelter and faced the full fury of the gale in order to take photos of these peaks, finding it very difficult to hold my camera steady. Thank goodness for fast shutter speeds!
After half an hour I left the top and began my retreat. It was much easier going down, of course, but still tricky with the gusty wind quartering at my back. I descended 2700 feet on the grassy ridge and slopes back down to the trees, and bushwhacked through the woods down to the trail and returned to Macey Creek. It took about two hours to descend from the summit to the creek, about an hour less than this portion of the ascent had taken going up. I took a nice half hour break at the stream, where I enjoyed the soothing sound of the stream and the wind rustling through the fluttering yellow aspen leaves on this beautiful fall day. Afterward I hiked back to my truck, where I arrived about 4:40. I climbed about 4700 feet of elevation gain today, and hiked about twelve and a half miles, four or five fewer than the longer route via Macey Lakes would have entailed. I saw no one else on the hike all day. This turned out to be an excellent route to climb Colony Baldy. In spite of the challenging wind I thoroughly enjoyed this climb. All-day outings in the mountains such as this are especially rewarding at this time of year.
