The Ochinee Traverse

Prelude:

The route between Cherokee and Achonee Mountain is a seldom-visited, but outstanding knife edge of a ridge that bounds the western edge of the Lone Eagle Cirque. Before our attempt, the only information I could find regarding this ridge was in a trip report submitted by @pbakwin, which can be found here. A bit of history behind my naming convention - In the Spring of 1914, Ellsworth, inspired by the recently established names of the Arapaho Peaks, proposed 11 tribal names for various summits along the continental divide in what is now known as the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Six of the proposed names were adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names. While most of the peaks in the IPW were named after Native American tribes, Achonee Mountain was named after a Cheyenne Chief, Ochinee, who was significantly involved in peace talks between Native American tribes and white settlers leading up to the Sand Creek Massacre.

Ochinee helped negotiate a treaty between the government, Cheyenne, and Arapaho for a large group of Native Americans to safely camp along Sand Creek during the winter of 1864 - 1865. However, on November 29, 1864, the encampment at Sand Creek was attacked by approximately 600 soldiers of the Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, led by Colonel John Chivington. While numbers may fluctuate depending on which source of information you read, it's generally agreed that somewhere between 100 and 200 Native Americans, most of whom were unarmed women, children, or elderly, were massacred. Ochinee initially escaped from the camp, but upon seeing that his people were to be slaughtered, deliberately returned to the one-sided battle to die with them. It's my opinion that naming this traverse after Chief Ochinee pays homage to the attempts at peace made by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes leading up to the senseless slaughter led by Chivington. It also sticks to the naming convention established by Ellsworth Bethel.

Approach:

There's no good way to combine or approach these peaks as a duo. Either way, you're looking at a long approach from either Monarch Lake (West) or Brainard Lake (East). Either approach involves a significant number of miles and has its pros and cons. Approaching from the West involves much less elevation gain, but there's no easy way to bail off of the peaks that make up the Lone Eagle Cirque back down to Crater Lake, especially if there's a desire to combine the route with other peaks along the ridge. The easiest exit from the ridge would likely be the Hopi Glacier, a semi-permanent snowfield that would necessitate the use of crampons and/or an ice axe for most of the Spring and Summer. Once past Hopi, the next reasonable bail option into the Crater Lake Cirque would be via Fair Glacier.

Approaching from the East involves a long descent from Pawnee Pass down to Crater Lake before ascending to the summit of Cherokee. It's extremely committing and has a less-than-ideal descent from the summit of Apache via the East Slopes. Unfortunately, any bail options listed for the West Approach are even worse when approaching from the East because one would need to descend to the trail junction past Crater Lake and regain approximately 2500' of elevation to get back to the other side of the divide. A fast group could continue the ridge over to Navajo Peak and Niwot Ridge, then descend back to Brainard Lake via the Niwot Ridge Trail. The aesthetics of completing the ridge to the summit of Apache, along with the shorter drive, made the East approach the more desirable option.

Route Information (Brainard Lake Approach):

Mileage: Approximately 20 Miles
Elevation: Approximately 8000'
Class: 5.easy
Time to Complete: 16.5 Hours

Exposure: Extreme
Rockfall: High (Mostly Cherokee's South Gully)
Route-Finding: High
Commitment: Extreme

Cherokee Peak via Crater Lake

There are a couple of different ways to reach the summit of Cherokee Peak and several trip reports describe the various routes. Ultimately, due to simplicity, we chose to ascend the South Gully from Crater Lake. We followed a faint trail around the right side of Crater Lake and wove our way through several rock slabs to reach the base of the gully around 11,400'. We generally followed the path of least resistance and for the most part, we didn't encounter much bushwhacking. From the base of the gully, we took the right-hand entrance, which involved some class 4 moves, but soon relented to a combination of low-angle slabs, grass, and the occasional section of loose talus. It's not the best route, but it's easy enough.

The Traverse to Achonee

The Traverse from the summit of Cherokee to Achonee is by far the crux of the route and is truly one of the more spectacular ridgelines in Colorado. The ridge is essentially a sustained, granite, knife edge that seems to defy gravity with shear cliffs to the Southeast. The initial start of the ridge is fairly broad and has some loose talus, but the ridge soon narrows to a seemingly impossible, sustained knife of rock that is (for the most part) incredibly solid. Generally speaking, we weren't able to spend a lot of time on the ridge proper on our descent to the saddle except for a few spots due to vertical steps along the ridge. Whenever the ridgeline became too difficult, we used ledges on the West side to bypass difficulties and make our way back up to the ridge. Our route to the saddle felt like sustained 4th class with some easy 5th class movements, though dropping further below the ridge would have taken us to easier terrain.

From the saddle, we were able to stay more ridge proper, though we needed to drop below for a spot or two. A tower about 3/4 of the way across the ridge blocks relatively simple ridge travel. Once you've reascended to 12,000' follow a series of ledges to a prominent notch on the West side of the tower. Once through the notch, downclimb an easy 5th-class chimney to a grassy ledge that wraps around the tower. We ascended back up to the ridge proper immediately and continued to follow the ridge to the summit of Achonee. This part of the traverse took us about 2.5 hours.

Achonee to Hopi to Iroquois

More or less! Once back on the ridge, it's a pretty simple route along the remainder of the ridge to the summit of Achonee. You can breathe a sigh of relief because the hardest part of the traverse is over! All that's left is the remaining half of the traverse! The Traverse from Achonee to Hopi is a quick, low-angle talus and grass slope. From Hopi, there are two options. One is to drop below a short spicy section of the ridge to the South via a series of ledges, then work your way back up to the saddle and continue the traverse to the summit of Iroquois. There is a path through the mess of sharp pointy rocks which is a very fun route-finding puzzle with some great exposure and solid rock... assuming you want to scramble more. After the spikey part of the ridge, the terrain eases significantly, though there is still some scrambling to be had en route to the summit of Iroquois.

Iroquois to Mount George

The next section of the ridge has some interesting route-finding challenges, but it's fairly simple. You'll want to stay below the next two bumps along the ridge (they don't go anywhere) by traversing grass and talus between each notch. The flat piece of rock that makes up the summit of the tower roughly halfway across can't be down-climbed directly. From the bottom of the second notch, we did an ascending traverse to a prominent notch on the right side of the final tower (nothing harder than class 2). Once through the notch, there's a ledge system that will take you down into the gully. There are some committing, traversing, moves to get out of the gully, but it's a short section. It's not necessary to descend the gully. Take a narrowing ledge around a slabby face into the next gully. Follow the ledge to the very end where a short, easy 5th class downclimb will put you on a fairly gentle slope of grass and talus. Traverse under the first cliff face after climbing out of the gully and then follow the ridge from there. The summit of Mount George is a short scramble away!

Mount George to Apache

The route from Mount George to Apache follows a series of ledges on the South side of the ridge to circumvent some particularly spicy-looking gendarmes. The nice thing is, you've been traversing ledges this entire time, so it's nothing new. Once at Fair Glacier, don't traverse onto the North side of the ridge. Continue traversing around the South side into a gully, which you'll ascend until you spot an easy exit to the right. This exit will plop you right on the South Face of Apache. Slog up the remaining 500' of talus to the summit of Apache, question your life choices, descend the East Slopes, cursing all of the dumb talus and boulders as you go, and pick up the trail on the left side of a tarn just above 11,400'. No, there is no good way to descend the East Face of Apache. Yes, it all sucks.

This truly is one of the more spectacular ridges in the IPW and I would highly recommend it for the experienced scrambler who enjoys a bit of suffering!