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IHikeLikeAGirl wrote:

DaveLanders wrote:The east ridge of Music is a wonderful scramble. If you want to avoid the ledge on Milwaukee, then you can just
come in from Cottonwood Creek on the west (the access is still supposed to be good for 2012; the rules after that
apparently haven't been decided; there is at least one thread about that on here somewhere).

I had a post asking about ascending Milwaukee from Cottonwood Creek side and the response was that there were cliffs near the summit so, you still had to go through the pass and cross the ledge. Do you know otherwise? Or are you suggesting ascending Pt 13020A from Cottonwood, then following the ridge to Pico Aislado and Milwaukee?

Sorry I wasn't more clear with my post. Yes, I meant ascending 13020 from Cottonwood Creek, then traversing to Pico
Asilado, and Milwaukee. You can descend off Milwaukee and traverse around Pico Asilado and then reclimb 13020
to get back down to Cottonwood Creek. Obviously this could be a very long day, and the weather would need to hold
because you would be up high for a long time. It may not be worth all this extra work to avoid the ledge on Milwaukee.

I can echo Steve's comments about the east risge of music and camping at sand lake. We camped at the lower sand lake at the base of Tijeras and wish we had an extra day for that one. spent some time strolling the northern shore of the lake barefoot with the soft sandy edge. We had an awesome campsite about 3-400' off the NE side of the lake. Bit of an anti-climatic grunt back up to Music Pass, but no where near as bad as the grunt leaving Holy Cross. I would do Tijeras and Music from the same approach on a return trip if more then 1 peak is your goal.

Thanks again...given all the input, and what appears to be a nasty bushwack up Deadman Creek, looks like I'll most likely try Milwaukee and Music from the east.

I may still scope out Deadman (in late June/early July) on a day trip though...if so, I'll post my findings

The west ridge of Music Mountain does not look too hard (probably 3rd class at most). I was going to return using it after climbingTierjas and then Pico Asilado but the weather got bad so I just went over the saddle between it and Tierjas instead. Getting to the base of the ridge is involved, though.

Not sure about the west ridge...I was camped by Upper Sand Lake in 2011, absolutely gorgeous and the basin between north of there between Milwaukee & Marble is very pretty. We did Tijeras, then the very fun and serious class 4 south ridge to Music's lower southern summit, had to bail down the easy class 2-3 east ridge back to the lake, because of stormclouds. I meant to get back there this past summer, but weather never cooperated on my open days, so a return this summer is in order.