PT. 13,660
PT. 13,577
July 14, 2008
By Tim Briese
9 miles, 3700' elevation gain, 8:35 roundtrip time
I left home at 3:30 a.m. and drove to Walsenburg to meet Brian. We followed each other to Gardner and headed up the road that climbs into the scenic Huerfano River valley. We left his car at a parking area in the state wildlife area along the road and continued in my truck several miles to the trailhead at the end of the road. This trailhead provides access to both Mt. Lindsey as well as Lily Lake and we were quite familiar with it.
At 7:05 we headed up the trail, with Blanca Peak beckoning us onward in the early morning light. We reached a trail junction after a mile or so, with the left fork being the well-trodden route to Mt. Lindsey and the right one our trail up to Lily Lake. We followed the excellent Lily Lake trail as it steadily climbed to the upper end of the valley before turning to the right and switchbacking sharply up to the lake, where we arrived at 8:50. Pt. 13,660 towered above the lake to the northwest. We greeted two fishermen as we walked around the eastern shore of the lake. This picturesque lake lies in a scenic bowl surrounded by a high ridge crowned by Blanca Peak. We headed north up a steep and loose talus slope to gain the ridge above. The 1100 foot climb up this nasty slope seemed much more tedious and demanding than I recalled it to be when I climbed it on my way to California Peak in 2001. I mulled over in my mind what the difference could be. Perhaps we followed a different line today, or perhaps it was because I was seven years younger with stronger knees and legs then, or maybe time had just dulled my memory. I suspected the latter reasons were more likely than the former. We finally reached the crest of the ridge at 13,500 feet and paused a moment to take in the scenic view below. We strolled a hundred yards north along the ridge to the summit of Pt. 13,577, where we arrived at 10:20. This point was merely a bonus 13er that we climbed on our way to our real goal today, the Bicentennial 13er Pt. 13,660. I had come over Pt. 13,577 on my way to California Peak, which I gazed at for a few moments as I reminisced about that climb.
After ten minutes we left the summit and began making our way over to Pt. 13,660. We dropped 300 feet down to the saddle between the peaks and climbed 400 feet up a rather rough ridge to the top. There was some fun scrambling as we neared the summit, which we reached at 11:15, some 45 minutes after we left the first point. We spent 35 minutes on top enjoying this fine vantage point. Lily Lake looked like a shimmering jewel in the basin far below.
After leaving the summit and heading back toward Pt. 13,577 we climbed back down to the saddle but this time traversed across a talus slope on Pt. 13,577's northwest side on a faint trail over to another saddle north of the Point. We considered taking a shortcut and descending to the east from this saddle and bushwhacking directly down to pick up the lower portion of the Lily Lake trail. After pondering the uncertainties of the snow slopes and cliffs we saw below we decided that might not be the best idea so we promptly climbed back up to the top of Pt. 13,577. From there it took about 45 minutes to carefully descend the talus slope back down to the lake, where we arrived at 1:40. After a nice rest break we headed back down the trail from the lake. Clouds were rapidly darkening and within an hour we were engulfed in a thunderstorm, with rain and hail pounding down. We sloshed back to the truck at 3:40 and headed for Westcliffe, in anticipation of our climb of Pico Asilado the next day.
