WHITE DOME
(13,627')PEAK ONE
(13,589')July 29, 2009
By Tim Briese
6.3 miles, 2700' elevation gain, 6:35 roundtrip time
I met Brian in Creede the afternoon before the climb and we headed for Beartown. We left Brian's car at the Ute Creek Trailhead and proceeded from there in my truck. The rough 4WD road over Timber Hill and beyond was very slow going and it took about two hours to get from Creede to Beartown. We drove past the Beartown Trailhead and continued an additional half mile up to Kite Lake, at 12,200 feet elevation. This final half mile was so steep and rough that it pushed the limit of my four wheel driving comfort. We met two backpackers camped at the lake who expressed surprise that we had driven up there. We told them we were headed up over the ridge west of the lake in the morning to climb White Dome and they pointed out to us a trail north of the lake that went up to the ridge, which was very helpful information. The start of the trail was on the north side of the road about 100 yards east of the lake and was marked by a small cairn. We drove back to that point and parked my truck and camped there for the night.
At 5:50 a.m. we left the truck at first light and hiked west up the trail above Kite Lake to the crest of the Continental Divide at 12,850 feet. From there we had a nice view of White Dome and Eldorado Lake in the early morning light. We followed the trail to the south into a minor drainage southeast of the lake and then did a bushwhacking traverse around the north side of White Dome, about 150 feet above the lake, to get into a drainage southwest of the lake. At the head of this drainage we climbed a talus slope to get to the 13,140 foot saddle between White Dome and Peak One. We arrived there about 7:30. From the saddle we headed up White Dome's west ridge, on the left side of the crest for a while and then on the right. The ridge looked rather rough from the saddle but turned out to be easier than it appeared and was quite fun to climb.
We arrived on top at 8:05 and enjoyed the spectacular views all around for about 20 minutes. The Guardian and Mt. Silex were quite impressive from this vantage point. Mt. Oso stood far off in the distance to the southeast beyond the Vallecito drainage, and it was hard to believe we might be hiking all the way from here to its summit by the next day. Eldorado Lake lay in a scenic basin below to the north. Our next objective, Peak One, was about a mile away to the southwest.
We left the summit and hiked back down to the saddle in about twenty minutes. From the saddle we followed a ridge southwest toward Peak One. Immediately we encountered the challenge of getting over or around Pt. 13,401, which was the crux of the route. Going to the right or left around it did not look feasible so we decided to make a Class 3 climb on a very loose rubble slope almost directly over the top of it. From there we went down another loose slope on its south side and followed the ridge on over to Peak One, where we arrived at 9:40. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get from White Dome to Peak One.
The views from Peak One were equally as spectacular as they had been from White Dome. The Grenadiers jutted into the sky like a giant sawblade, and it was particularly interesting to look at the Trinity Peaks, which we climbed last summer, from this vantage point. The Guardian and Silex, Storm King Peak, and Peak Six stood in splendid array. White Dome guarded the northeastern skyline. One notable entry in the register was written by Gerry Roach and said "Rubble trouble!", which was a fitting description of the route to get here from the saddle.
Clouds were rapidly filling the sky so we left at 10:05. We climbed back over the troublesome point to the saddle and headed down the talus slope as rain began to fall and thunder rumbled nearby. 10:30 in the morning seemed rather early for the start of such inclement weather. The sky partly cleared for a bit and a cold wind blew out of the northwest as we went back over the Divide and began our descent toward Kite Lake. We returned to the truck at 12:25 and relaxed for a while and ate our lunch. We wondered if the weather was good enough to embark on a backpack toward Mt. Oso that afternoon.
