Colorado peak questions, condition requests and other info.
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Derek, I very much agree with your ratings (for those peaks that I've done).
I am just surprised Monitor keeps making it on the list of difficult ones. I thought it was a simple scramble, as was Pk 13, while Animas made us all think at the crux (C4 chimney). But I have hard time differentiating between grades of C4
p.s. You forgot to mention 1-2 move wonder boulder problem on Pk 11!
p.p.s. I would also include Arrow and Vestal (via Wham), even though there's C3 walk off route
I agree with almost all of Benners' take on Peak Fifteen.
When I'm doing the sort of sketch climbs at the top of the hardest peaks list, some of my mental cycles are devoted to the question of what the escape plan is if something goes wrong. Answering the question for the peaks listed in my first post, the only one for which I concluded with the dreaded "nothing better go wrong" was Peak Fifteen. If someone were injured near the top of P15 with weather closing in, the situation would be very dicey -- just getting down into the upper reaches of New York Basin would be a huge ordeal and then you'd still be a long way from camp in Ruby Basin with difficult terrain between you and it and much further still from outside help. Put another way, the "just getting off the mountain" factor is considerably higher on P15 than anything else. Jagged would be tough too because of all the traversing but the distances aren't too far and with two ropes you might be able to lower someone past all the difficulties to easier ground. The more I think about it though, an escape from Turret could be pretty tough too because of "friendly fire" rockfall, the hard to reverse traverse and the more than one rope length worth of solid 4th class (+) scrambling below the 5th class pitches; however, once past the scrambling you would be less than a mile from a 2WD road.
Several people suggested that my ranking system does not give enough weight. YDS is generally based on hardest technical move; a climb consisting of 19 pitches of 5.2, the last of which ended with one V5 boulder problem could well get a 12b YDS rating though most people would likely climb it at 5.2 A1 or C0. Lizard Head is well protected enough that it could likely be rigged so the second could climb it at 5.6 C1; its approach is short enough that bringing lots of extra gear to make such frigging possible would be no problem. An even better example of this principle is McReynolds which is class two until the 20' high summit boulder; the free climbing moves on this boulder are harder than anything else on the list but with such a short distance to cover, the timeline would comfortably allow aiding every move or even rigging a rope ladder. This approach wouldn't work at all on Turret which has more than 300 continuous feet of solid fifth class; the timeline doesn't work unless all members of the party can expeditiously free climb. My ranking system actually gave 150% more weight to rock climbing that to any other criteria but the climbing points were in two categories with 1/3 going to hardest move (YDS) and 2/3 going to quantity of climbing. (I liked Furthermore's system which used more criteria than mine did except that did it not consider amount of 5th class.)
Another thought I have after a couple of days of reflection is that my rankings under represent the difference in technical diffiuclty and, especially, seriousness between Turret Ridge and everything else. Eliminating approach and remoteness considerations, my without-actually-running-the-numbers sense is that TR would score at least 50% higher than anything on the list.
Looking at the recent additions to this thread with their greatly varying opinions about what's harder than what, I'm struck at how subjective these rankings are, no matter objective and analytical we try be. I'm also realizing that the conditions we do these peaks in makes a huge difference to how we later perceive them. E.g. I did South Lookout in the rain and became more strung out than on any other CO ascent. Conversely, I did Pilot Knob on a splitter day, climbing the entire summit formation twice and the crux several times, and remember the entire outing as a carefree romp. Thus I remember S Lookout as a crux of my entire 13er history and Pilot Knob as one of the more stress free and purely enjoyable outings while Furthermore ranks Pilot Knob several places above SL in difficulty.
I was thinking more about this thread this past weekend. Coming from the point of view of not having led the hard pitches, I still think Turret Ridge is the most difficult ranked peak over 10K in CO.
I re-read Brian Crim's trip report for Turret Ridge. Dhgold led that climb, and Brian is also an excellent climber with much experience on rotten rock. Brian was impressed by the traverse pitch, which is exposed and apparently full of lichen. I am not really affected by exposure, and for the life of me, I don't remember the lichen or it being a problem. I just didn't want to fall and pendulum. It dawned on me that our guide on Turret Ridge had felt very strongly that we should climb the peak in our hiking boots, not rock shoes, and despite my disbelief that I could climb the 5.9 spot in boots, that's what we did. He said for that type of rock, we'd be much happier in boots than rock shoes. Is this common knowledge? Did the others here who've climbed it use rock shoes? Seems like wearing boots could make the lichen traverse a lot less memorable?
And congrats to dhgold for finishing the 13ers yesterday!
Interesting list, especially interesting to compare notes so to speak. I still have several of the candidates remaining, probably about 10 or so of the consensus hardest 25 thirteeners including Lizard Head and Peak 15 to go for me, so I will reserve judgement on a top 10 list, but I did have a few things I have seen come up that I found curious and thought I would give my two cents on those.
I was surprised to see Monitor but not Animas, I thought Animas was the harder of the two. Then again, Monitor has more of a route finding challenge so it may be that we just dialed the route in well enough that it felt fairly straight forward, where on Animas we got into some stiffer class 4 and then had issues on the descent with finding the right gullies to get back to camp.
Surprised to see Clark mentioned at all, unless you are on the ridge crest the whole way, we thought it was barely even class 3. You can bypass most of the difficulties on the south, which we did on the way down as we were racing weather. Its back in there and there is a lot of boulder hopping, but we did not find it to be that technically challenging. More of a grunt.
US Grant is also one I would say is not that tough, the 10 feet of class 4 is solid and the holds are plentiful. Always the right hold right where you need it. Its really fun. The class 4 rating is appropriate, but its probably the easiest class 4 peak I have done.
On the other side, some people listed El Punto and Heisshorn but NOT neighboring 13222, which I thought was the worst of those 3. At least the crux was solid, but the rest of the mountain was falling apart. Heisshorn is more sustained, but more straightforward. I thought the class 2+ below the knife was the worst part, the upper mountain was actually kind of fun. Punto was super exposed, and while it was loose, its shorter and less complicated than 13222.
Another honorable mention is PT 13121 above Sunlight Basin, the summit block is tough to get up. More of a boulder problem, but it was trickier than expected. The rest of the peak would not be ten hardest worthy, but its a tough couple of moves to touch the highest point, sort of like the 14er Sunlight with the big featureless granite boulder at the top.
On the 12ers list, Dragon's Back is fun! If you find the right route all the class 4 is really enjoyable, the worst part is the class 2+ to get to the headwall that leads to the ridge. I think I got lucky with the route finding on that one. My partners went up too early and ended up in some death defying chimney.
Last edited by Chicago Transplant on Wed Sep 09, 2015 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"We want the unpopular challenge. We want to test our intellect!" - Snapcase
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On the 12ers list, Dragon's Back is fun! If you find the right route all the class 4 is really enjoyable, the worst part is the class 2+ to get to the headwall that leads to the ridge. I think I got lucky with the route finding on that one. My partners went up too early and ended up in some death defying chimney.
Haha - yup. Certainly chose the path of most resistance!
Scott, I'll defer to Dave to answer that. I'd say Rabbit Ears was more dangerous than Lizard Head, Twin Peaks, or McReynolds, despite coming in lower on the YDS scale than any of those.
Teresa Gergen wrote: ... our guide on Turret Ridge ... said for that type of rock, we'd be much happier in boots than rock shoes. Is this common knowledge? Did the others here who've climbed it use rock shoes? Seems like wearing boots could make the lichen traverse a lot less memorable?
I'm not sure where your guide was coming from with that recommendation. We both wore rock shoes for the entire climb, including the 4th class approach sections. I don't know about Brian but I was glad for the extra sensitivity that rock shoes provided as it gave me a better idea when a foothold was about to give way. The one advantage I can see to hiking boots is that they would be more comfortable which could add up over the several hours that they're on you feet.
Scott P wrote:
How was Rabbit Ears by the way? Did it end up being really difficult, or was it not so bad? It looks somewhat technically easy, but loose.
Another party subsequently claimed to have made a much easier ascent of RR's true summit. The information they provided didn't completely add up (they 4th classed the descent!?) but if they really did summit, it must have been from the south side which we perfunctorily inspected, concluding the rock looked a lot better but protection seemed scant.
Another party subsequently claimed to have made a much easier ascent of RR's true summit. The information they provided didn't completely add up (they 4th classed the descent!?) but if they really did summit, it must have been from the south side which we perfunctorily inspected, concluding the rock looked a lot better but protection seemed scant.
Do you think they meant the west summit though? Many people confuse the west summit for the highpoint since it is the one with the benchmark.
Nice TR by the way.
I'm old, slow and fat. Unfortunately, those are my good qualities.
My research on Rabbit Ears was that it was led free at 5.6 years ago. My eyeballing of the…western? end of the formation supports that. Crappy rock, poor protection, but if things held (a big if) then it looked like a cobble connection climb, maybe 5.6-ish. But the day we were there was pretty chilly, my hands were going numb, the wind was unrelenting, we backed off. A sporty climb for sure.
But given that I wasn't personally there to see it go free at 5.6, and that it's not on the internets, it didn't happen.
-Tom
PS I should have added, fwiw, I thought the toughest of those I've done on the previous list were (a) McReynolds, because I led that 5.8-ish glassy smooth offwidth and I hate (and thus suck at) leading offwidths, and (don't laugh...b)Silverplume. I have a self-imposed rule of not calling it a true summit if I use any sort of aid, so I didn't use the stacked rocks, boulders or logs at the base of Silverplume. Took me a couple of minutes to figure out the boulder problem, a vexing problem heightened by my short reach limitations. Argh!
Teresa Gergen wrote: ... our guide on Turret Ridge ... said for that type of rock, we'd be much happier in boots than rock shoes. Is this common knowledge? Did the others here who've climbed it use rock shoes? Seems like wearing boots could make the lichen traverse a lot less memorable?
I'm not sure where your guide was coming from with that recommendation.
He's a top notch internationally certified guide. I went on to use hiking boots for a number of the technical alpine climbs I've done since then where the rock is not crag quality (again, following, not leading) for routes rated up to 5.7, and was not unhappy with how it worked. With good rock, I'd want rock shoes.
The person who led Rabbit Ears in the past is also a highly experienced top notch alpine rock/snow/expedition leader, who's led numerous climbs for me and teams I've been a part of, both here and in South America, and he did climb the higher summit, although I don't know where his line was.
