Kit Carson Peak Trip Report 05/11/2014

Peak(s):	Kit Carson Peak - 14,167 feet
Date Posted:	05/11/2014
Date Climbed:	04/24/2014
Author:	moneymike

Hard core cornography
April 24, 2014 was the date for my Kit Carson installment of my month long endeavor to ski the Sangre de Cristo range 14ers (except for Humbolt, since I had skied it the previous year). Embarrassingly, this was my third attempt at Kit Carson. Last year, I camped out down there but drank a little too much the night before the hike. The next morning, I hiked in for a couple hours before realizing I just wasn't feeling up for the task. Also somewhat embarrassingly, this was not my only failed mission last year due to excessive drinking. I cancelled two Antero trips for the same reason, and my successful Antero trip was very close to being a no-go (see my Antero trip report). It's not that I'm a raging alcoholic or anything (any of my friends reading this are probably rolling their eyes right now), I just have a bit of trouble falling asleep before a ski trip. I just get way too excited. Even a regular day skiing the moguls and Mary Jane can cause enough excitement to keep me up the night before. But don't worry folks, this year I learned my lesson...a true mountaineer never lets hangovers or drunkenness get in the way of making a summit. I'm just kidding, I've toned down the drinking a bit. My first attempt at KC began in the darkness on the Spanish Creek bushwhack...er, I mean Spanish Creek trail. No, I think I do mean the Spanish Creek bushwhack. The trail is very faint, and there are a lot of other trails that lead to gauging stations along the creek. I got off trail a few times and consequently wasted a lot of time. My second attempt was several weeks later. I knew KC's south face may have melted out, but I hoped it hadn't. I hiked in the previous day during daylight hours and found the trail was much easier to follow. I set up camp around 11,000 feet and threw back the correct amount of vodka (not too much, and not too little). Unfortunately, the next day I discovered that my intended line (the south couloir) was out. This year I wasn't going to let any stupid decisions get in my way of skiing this line. I had gotten a couple good views of KC's south face on a few of my other Sangre trips. As with pretty much all of the Sangre de Cristo mountains this year, KC looked to be in pretty good shape. Kit Carson seen from Crestone Peak The Sangres had gotten at least three more good dumps since I took that picture from Crestone Peak, which really filled in the rocky sections near KC's summit. I left my house Wednesday morning at 2 a.m. and began my drive down to Crestone. About 15 minutes later, I realized that I had forgotten my hiking boots and headed back home. So, I guess my actual drive really began at 2:30 a.m. I arrived at the Spanish Creek trailhead a little before 6 a.m. After a bite to eat and getting all geared up, I hit the trail at 6:30 a.m. The Spanish Creek trail head sits at a lowly 8, 270' elevation, which means I had a nearly 6,000 vertical foot day ahead of me. You know you're in for a big vertical ski day when prickly pear is the dominant vegetation at the trailhead. The trail begins on private land. Last year, I spoke with some people who seemed to be affiliated with the land owners in some way, and they made it clear that they had no problem with people hiking the trail (on the left or north side of the creek). The right, or south, side of the creek has a sign indicating that they do not want trespassers (even though the trail on this side has abundant, nice looking cairns). Following the trail on the left side of the creek is simple in day light if you are careful not to head down paths that lead towards any solar powered monitoring stations. Within a few minutes, the main trail leads you to the creek at some sort of station, with a white wooden plank as a bridge. The trail back tracks a short distance and then progresses up the south side of the creek. The desert vegetation quickly transitions to a riparian environment as you head into the canyon. Although the trail is fairly easy to navigate from this point on, you will encounter pretty dense vegetation. I imagine the trail is quite easy to hike for regular hikers, but skiers will find their skis and boots snagging on the vegetation. If you're carrying your skis A frame, you will probably want to make sure your ski tip strap is secure. There are 673 (I counted) low hanging tree branches whose second purpose in life, after photosynthesis, is to remove your ski strap from your skis. Their second and third purposes in life are to slow you down and to make your life miserable. I prefer to use steel wire, and thread it through the holes in the tips of my K2 Shucksans. The trick is to be smarter than the trees. Although the trail is primitive and the vegetation is thick, the trail ascends quite rapidly and I was able to average about 1,000 vertical feet per hour. The trail crosses the creek four or five times, if I remember correctly, with the help of some makeshift bridges made out of logs or conveniently placed stepping stones. The crossings are easy, but one should take care not to make any stupid mistakes. Soaking your feet could really ruin your trip. Also, be sure that your ski tips are not snagged on a branch above you before you make a leap across the creek. Flipping yourself over backwards in mid leap, and landing ass first in the river would probably not be pleasant. Somewhere above 10,000', I came to a flatter section of the trail with numerous downed trees. If you enjoy crawling over hundreds of downed trees, you will really enjoy this section of the trail! The trail is faint under foot, but if you keep your eyes open for rocks resting on logs, you will be able to follow the correct path. By 11,040' I came to continuous snow and ditched my hiking boots on a large, conspicuous bolder. Skinning up from here was easy. Even without cairns or foot prints in the snow, if you take the path of least resistance, you will more or less be following the trail. Around 12,000' I started skinning up the south face towards the couloir which doesn't really become narrow until above 12,500' (if I remember correctly). I feel like the Sangres are the creepiest of our mountain ranges Ascending the couloir and left onto the open south face of Kit Carson, I estimated the angle to be between maybe 35 and 45 degrees. However, there are lots of wind drifted snow features that may exceed 50 degrees that can be skied. The snow was firm, frozen corn, or "hardcore cornography" as it is sometimes called (mainly by me). This kind of snow is easy to climb, but I took it slow in hopes that the sun would come out and warm up the snow a bit. The sun never ended up coming out to soften up my snow, but at least there was a nearly constant 40 mph wind to keep me entertained. Blowing ice particles helped to exfoliate my face on the way up (I like my skin to be beautiful when I reach the summit). The winds blowing up the face were pretty bad, but I could hear that they were even worse near the summit ridge. Those sounds are very poor motivation to hurry to the summit, but I kept telling myself that moving slowly to avoid the windy summit would not help me any. Nearing the summit ridge, a bit east of the summit, I saw the foot prints of another hiker who had apparently climbed up from the north side and already descended. I followed his tracks to the summit and made the summit just before 2 p.m. Looking down the north side towards Challenger Summit After taking my pictures and gearing up, I began the descent at 2:30 p.m. There was plenty of snow on the summit and below it on the south face. Unlike a lot of other Sangre 14ers, I really had no trouble avoiding the rocks below the summit. The upper portion of the line was that horrible wind crust where you don't know if you are going to punch through or have to edge a bullet proof crust. Skiing either type is easy if you know what to expect with each turn, but not knowing forces me to make much more cautious jump turns. Fortunately, it wasn't long before I hit consistently hard and supportable frozen corn. My Shucksans are narrow, ridged skis that edge like swords. Although skiing soft corn, or "softcore cornography" as it is often called (mainly by me), would have been preferable, linking multiple jump turns on frozen smooth corn is super simple with the Shucksans. The ski down was really enjoyable. Although the sun never came out and the air temps probably never got above freezing, the dust layer somehow managed to absorb enough solar radiation to turn the snow below 12,500' into a mush that was neither supportable nor easy to push around. Leaning back and making super wide turns, I skied down below tree line through snow that decreased in quality as I decreased in elevation. Making my way through the quagmire, I came to my boots sooner than I had expected (my altimeter was a couple hundred feet off). Fortunately, I had placed them in such an obvious location (and took care to follow my skin tracks). As always, I hiked at a relatively slow pace down the trail in order to go as easy on my old knees as possible. A couple hours later, I made it back to my car at 6:20 p.m. for an almost 12 hr day. KC's face covered in white (as all hardcore cornography should end) I noticed, on the summit, that I had forgotten the card for my go pro. So, I don't have any video of this descent, but you might enjoy watching my Windom video instead. Here's the link http://youtu.be/lgqRH1vkitI Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Hard core cornography

April 24, 2014 was the date for my Kit Carson installment of my month long endeavor to ski the Sangre de Cristo range 14ers (except for Humbolt, since I had skied it the previous year). Embarrassingly, this was my third attempt at Kit Carson. Last year, I camped out down there but drank a little too much the night before the hike. The next morning, I hiked in for a couple hours before realizing I just wasn't feeling up for the task.

Also somewhat embarrassingly, this was not my only failed mission last year due to excessive drinking. I cancelled two Antero trips for the same reason, and my successful Antero trip was very close to being a no-go (see my Antero trip report). It's not that I'm a raging alcoholic or anything (any of my friends reading this are probably rolling their eyes right now), I just have a bit of trouble falling asleep before a ski trip. I just get way too excited. Even a regular day skiing the moguls and Mary Jane can cause enough excitement to keep me up the night before. But don't worry folks, this year I learned my lesson...a true mountaineer never lets hangovers or drunkenness get in the way of making a summit. I'm just kidding, I've toned down the drinking a bit.

My first attempt at KC began in the darkness on the Spanish Creek bushwhack...er, I mean Spanish Creek trail. No, I think I do mean the Spanish Creek bushwhack. The trail is very faint, and there are a lot of other trails that lead to gauging stations along the creek. I got off trail a few times and consequently wasted a lot of time. My second attempt was several weeks later. I knew KC's south face may have melted out, but I hoped it hadn't. I hiked in the previous day during daylight hours and found the trail was much easier to follow. I set up camp around 11,000 feet and threw back the correct amount of vodka (not too much, and not too little). Unfortunately, the next day I discovered that my intended line (the south couloir) was out.

This year I wasn't going to let any stupid decisions get in my way of skiing this line. I had gotten a couple good views of KC's south face on a few of my other Sangre trips. As with pretty much all of the Sangre de Cristo mountains this year, KC looked to be in pretty good shape.

The Sangres had gotten at least three more good dumps since I took that picture from Crestone Peak, which really filled in the rocky sections near KC's summit.

I left my house Wednesday morning at 2 a.m. and began my drive down to Crestone. About 15 minutes later, I realized that I had forgotten my hiking boots and headed back home. So, I guess my actual drive really began at 2:30 a.m.

I arrived at the Spanish Creek trailhead a little before 6 a.m. After a bite to eat and getting all geared up, I hit the trail at 6:30 a.m. The Spanish Creek trail head sits at a lowly 8, 270' elevation, which means I had a nearly 6,000 vertical foot day ahead of me. You know you're in for a big vertical ski day when prickly pear is the dominant vegetation at the trailhead.

The trail begins on private land. Last year, I spoke with some people who seemed to be affiliated with the land owners in some way, and they made it clear that they had no problem with people hiking the trail (on the left or north side of the creek). The right, or south, side of the creek has a sign indicating that they do not want trespassers (even though the trail on this side has abundant, nice looking cairns).

Following the trail on the left side of the creek is simple in day light if you are careful not to head down paths that lead towards any solar powered monitoring stations. Within a few minutes, the main trail leads you to the creek at some sort of station, with a white wooden plank as a bridge. The trail back tracks a short distance and then progresses up the south side of the creek.

The desert vegetation quickly transitions to a riparian environment as you head into the canyon. Although the trail is fairly easy to navigate from this point on, you will encounter pretty dense vegetation. I imagine the trail is quite easy to hike for regular hikers, but skiers will find their skis and boots snagging on the vegetation. If you're carrying your skis A frame, you will probably want to make sure your ski tip strap is secure. There are 673 (I counted) low hanging tree branches whose second purpose in life, after photosynthesis, is to remove your ski strap from your skis. Their second and third purposes in life are to slow you down and to make your life miserable. I prefer to use steel wire, and thread it through the holes in the tips of my K2 Shucksans. The trick is to be smarter than the trees.

Although the trail is primitive and the vegetation is thick, the trail ascends quite rapidly and I was able to average about 1,000 vertical feet per hour. The trail crosses the creek four or five times, if I remember correctly, with the help of some makeshift bridges made out of logs or conveniently placed stepping stones. The crossings are easy, but one should take care not to make any stupid mistakes. Soaking your feet could really ruin your trip. Also, be sure that your ski tips are not snagged on a branch above you before you make a leap across the creek. Flipping yourself over backwards in mid leap, and landing ass first in the river would probably not be pleasant.

Somewhere above 10,000', I came to a flatter section of the trail with numerous downed trees. If you enjoy crawling over hundreds of downed trees, you will really enjoy this section of the trail! The trail is faint under foot, but if you keep your eyes open for rocks resting on logs, you will be able to follow the correct path.

By 11,040' I came to continuous snow and ditched my hiking boots on a large, conspicuous bolder. Skinning up from here was easy. Even without cairns or foot prints in the snow, if you take the path of least resistance, you will more or less be following the trail.

Around 12,000' I started skinning up the south face towards the couloir which doesn't really become narrow until above 12,500' (if I remember correctly).

I feel like the Sangres are the creepiest of our mountain ranges

Ascending the couloir and left onto the open south face of Kit Carson, I estimated the angle to be between maybe 35 and 45 degrees. However, there are lots of wind drifted snow features that may exceed 50 degrees that can be skied. The snow was firm, frozen corn, or "hardcore cornography" as it is sometimes called (mainly by me). This kind of snow is easy to climb, but I took it slow in hopes that the sun would come out and warm up the snow a bit. The sun never ended up coming out to soften up my snow, but at least there was a nearly constant 40 mph wind to keep me entertained. Blowing ice particles helped to exfoliate my face on the way up (I like my skin to be beautiful when I reach the summit).

The winds blowing up the face were pretty bad, but I could hear that they were even worse near the summit ridge. Those sounds are very poor motivation to hurry to the summit, but I kept telling myself that moving slowly to avoid the windy summit would not help me any. Nearing the summit ridge, a bit east of the summit, I saw the foot prints of another hiker who had apparently climbed up from the north side and already descended. I followed his tracks to the summit and made the summit just before 2 p.m.

Looking down the north side towards Challenger

After taking my pictures and gearing up, I began the descent at 2:30 p.m. There was plenty of snow on the summit and below it on the south face. Unlike a lot of other Sangre 14ers, I really had no trouble avoiding the rocks below the summit. The upper portion of the line was that horrible wind crust where you don't know if you are going to punch through or have to edge a bullet proof crust. Skiing either type is easy if you know what to expect with each turn, but not knowing forces me to make much more cautious jump turns. Fortunately, it wasn't long before I hit consistently hard and supportable frozen corn. My Shucksans are narrow, ridged skis that edge like swords. Although skiing soft corn, or "softcore cornography" as it is often called (mainly by me), would have been preferable, linking multiple jump turns on frozen smooth corn is super simple with the Shucksans. The ski down was really enjoyable.

Although the sun never came out and the air temps probably never got above freezing, the dust layer somehow managed to absorb enough solar radiation to turn the snow below 12,500' into a mush that was neither supportable nor easy to push around. Leaning back and making super wide turns, I skied down below tree line through snow that decreased in quality as I decreased in elevation. Making my way through the quagmire, I came to my boots sooner than I had expected (my altimeter was a couple hundred feet off). Fortunately, I had placed them in such an obvious location (and took care to follow my skin tracks).

As always, I hiked at a relatively slow pace down the trail in order to go as easy on my old knees as possible. A couple hours later, I made it back to my car at 6:20 p.m. for an almost 12 hr day.

KC's face covered in white (as all hardcore cornography should end)

I noticed, on the summit, that I had forgotten the card for my go pro. So, I don't have any video of this descent, but you might enjoy watching my Windom video instead. Here's the link http://youtu.be/lgqRH1vkitI

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

GerryRigged	Moneymike 5/12/2014 12:54am You are almost there! You are really getting after it. Nice work on all your ski decents this season and TRs. Best of fortune on your last two.
PaliKona	Nice 5/12/2014 2:40am Very enjoyable read. Love the humor. Nice trek.
Dave B	Pre-climb night libations... 5/12/2014 2:50pm ..Are a near necessity with me as well. Great report (and the Challenger one too) way to get 'em done. Good luck with your remaining peaks. Edit: I'm not 100% sure I understand the point but here's a possible fix.
freeinthehills	N. KC 5/12/2014 5:15pm Does anything go from KC summit on the North side?
jmanner	Solo 5/12/2014 6:47pm Will you be soloing Capitol as well? edit: Pyramid too? Also: Wow man you have really attacked these ski descents hard the last two springs!! Nicely done!!
moneymike	GerryRigged: 5/12/2014 8:18pm Thanks for the motivational comments. I've actually got six more on my to-do list before I call it (I want to redo one of them). PaliKona: Glad you enjoyed it Dave B: Thanks, man. I'm getting close. freeinthehills: I don't think there were more than five snowflakes on KC's North side when I saw it. It must get wind hammered. If there is ever a snow year when that side holds snow, and you get a ski descent of it, I will buy you a pitcher. jmanner: Pyramid, yes. Capitol, we will see. I don't know if anyone has ever solo skied Capitol peak. It has been solo climbed in snow conditions, and others have climbed/skied it without a belay, so it seems like it is possible. Thanks, everyone, for the interest in my project. I'll try to keep my list updated, and put out a few more trip reports. Wish me luck. edit: Good luck, not bad luck
bergsteigen	Solo ski list 5/12/2014 8:37pm Was wondering if this was your plan! Pretty impressive so far! I'm at 50% solo currently, though I foresee partners for the harder ones.
SchralpTheGnar	solo 5/12/2014 10:37pm Solo, I'm a soloist on a solo list All live, never on a floppy disk Inka, inka, bottle of ink Paintings of rebellion Drawn up by the thoughts I think as far as i know all north side ski descents go down the south couloir then over to the ob couloir, it's a sick route too. sick project moneymike, good luck man.
moneymike	Bergsteigen: 5/13/2014 7:31pm Yeah,that's the plan. All but one of my descents have been solo. I'll have to go back and solo that one too. SchralpTheGnar: Thanks man. Rage against the machine!

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