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Peak(s):  Pikes Peak  -  14,109 feet
Date Posted:  02/29/2008
Date Climbed:   02/16/2008
Author:  Cunningham
 Pikes from The Crags   

*This report may differ slightly from that in your book, but it worked great.
This has been a strange winter in that it seems like the days have been either unseasonably warm, or snowing. I had to take advantage of one of the warm days to get in a winter ascent so I called up two of my non-lazy friends, one from Ft Collins and the other from Colorado Springs (place to stay!!) and set up a trip to Pikes.
It is a great and rare luxury to have a place to stay that you don‘t have to pay for and that is so close to a 14er. We spent Friday afternoon and evening relaxing. We left the apartment around 3 AM and got to walkin‘ by ten to 4 on great initial snow pack.
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The trail is in good shape, but it is tough to find since you can‘t really use any landmarks described in guide books to navigate because everything is covered in snow. Just remember that the trail to the summit takes off up hill to the right just past campsight 8, as described in this and past trip reports. Keep an eye on the signs.
As the trees start to thin out you will probably want to whip out the snow shoes. Keep a keen eye out for the main trail and try not to veer on to one of the many recreational snow shoe trails. After you reach tree line, the path gets extremely steep, but you can stash your snow shoes since you probably won‘t need them again (I wish I would have stashed mine here).
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Pace your way up the slope to this, the first of many rock formations.
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*NOTE: Pass over a saddle that will take you through the middle of the rocks and note the trail marker, which should be a post with blue ribbon tied to the top. On your decent, there are two rock formations at this same point in the trail, the one you passed through and another one to climber‘s right about 1/4 miles away. Make sure you pass through the same rocks you ascended through to avoid backtracking.

Once to these rocks, you get a view of the next part of the rout. Pace up this slope to get a sight of the next rock formation you should pass through (a little ways off yet).
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Up the slope a bit and you get your first view of the still distant summit.
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It is still a ways off- this hike has a lot of miles above tree line. You will be able to see the toll road from this area as well.
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To this general point you may or may not be on the exact trail, but you will now see the now easy to follow trail to the next set of rocks and that will lead you to your first intersection with the road.
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From here just follow the road about 3/4 of a mile to a mile to a scenic overlook, (sorry, no pictures for a bit, I was gettin‘ tired and just wanted to get there) cross the corner of the road, and continue paralleling the road on the left until it takes off to your right for good and continue following the rocky slope to the summit, and try to locate the many cairns if you are so inclined.
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Great views as always, but it was probably one of the less scenic hikes that I have done. A great day none the less as we couldn‘t have asked for any better weather. There was almost no wind on the summit so we spent a fair amount of time up there. Total hike time was about 9.5 hours.



Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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Comments or Questions
lordhelmut
User
nice
3/1/2008 1:36am
I‘ve said it before and I‘ll say it again, Crags is one of the sweetest routes out there, great views all around. Good to hear the weather held out for you guys and had a solid summit day.



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