OTHER Trip Report 07/17/2008

Peak(s):	Cooper Pk - 12296 Marten Pk - 12041 Lone Eagle Pk - 11920
Date Posted:	07/17/2008
Date Climbed:	07/12/2008
Author:	lordhelmut

The Spectacular Indian Peaks Wilderness
I‘ve read Roach‘s accout of his 15 day trip through the Indian Peaks, from Berthoud Pass to the boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park, and it lit a spark in me to say the least. The IPW is ibviously a popular backpacking/hiking/etc destination, but of all the summits I‘ve reached, I seldom run into many people and each one has ingrained its own unique place in my memory, each being a little different from the rest. Of all the parts I‘ve seen, I‘d have to say, the regions west of the Continental Divide has quickly become my new favorite region in all of Colorado, this past weekend only enhanced my appeal. My initial plan was to park around the Arapaho Bay region TH and hike in to Stone Lake, giving me easier access to Cooper, Marten, Hiamovi and "Hiamovi Tower". About 3 days before the short trip, my friend Chris, pitched me the idea to include Lone Eagle and do the daunting and very imposing Mohling Traverse over the teeth of "Limbo" to the absolutely ferocious west face of "Iroquios". I was sold pretty easily. The TH I planned on starting from was Monarch Lake, just along the southern shores of Lake Granby off rt.34. Here is a shot of a late afternoon sunset over the lake : This a fee area, i must‘ve missed the station, parked at the large parking lot at the end of the road near Monarch Lake, read up on the routes for the weekend and called it a night. The alarm went off at 3:30am and I was on the trail around 4:30am. This is a very easy trail to follow and one that sees a lot of feet, for the Crater Lake/Lone Eagle Cirque region is a very popular backpacking region. When the trail gets to a flat part of the woods, there is a trail junction to head to Buchanan Pass. This is 3.5 miles of so from the TH, took little over a hour. The next trail junction was marked by a sign for Gourd Lake. This was 2.7 miles and 55 minutes later. After this, the trail heads up a series of realy long switchbacks to Gourd Lake. This was somewhat grueling and monotonous (especialy on the way down). I reached the lake a little before 8am and was greeted with a solid view of my goal for the day, Cooper Pk : Gourd Lake is a spectacular sight nestled in the heart of the IPW at 10,820 feet, about 400 feet higher than Crater Lake, yet was warmer due to more exposure to sunlight, if I had more time, this would be an ideal place to swim and there is a cliff off the trail with solid 20-30 feet of cliff jumping with plenty of depth to land. The trail after the lake, gets increasingly more difficult to follow. My nat‘l geographic map, along with Roach‘s outline in his book, helped me out a great deal and soon enough I was looking Cooper right in the face : Roach hadn‘t described too much about the South Buttress of Cooper, other than its 3 short pitches of class 4. He didn‘t mention, although quite short, its a pretty commiting climb. I was in for a treat and a humbling surprise. I was prepared to bushwack a bit and thats exactly what I ended up doing. Its simple bushwacking though, since the South Buttress is easy to locate and easy to get under. The climbing starts pretty much after you leave grass and gets exposed and intense very fast. Looking back at the base of the buttress towards the Apache massif and Lone Eagle : I took this directly after finishing the first crux, where I‘m standing is the last safe place to bail if you don‘t feel you can go much further And this, to me, felt like the crux of the route To the right of this shot is a sudden, exposed drop off and the moves I was making felt very similar to the ones I remembered making along the Snowmas-Hagerman traverse in the Elks last summer. It was scary, scarier than I thought and I immediately had to get serious, cause I was entering the no fall zone section of the short buttress. It took me come courage and a few awkward foot and hand placements to get over this hump and before I knew it, I was topped out on the buttress. The actual summit of Cooper was about a quarter mile in front of me, passed an open, flat grassy field and a short class 2+ scramble to the surprisingly exposed summit. The summit blocks and my favorite pack of all time, the Osprey Kestrel Thr North face of Cooper was a lot steeper and vertical than I would‘ve thought. Roach couldn‘t have described Cooper as a "little adventure" any better. Here‘s a look over at my next destination, Marten Pk andthe connecting saddle : And a solid view of Hiamovi and "Hiamovi Tower" to the Northwest : On a side note, I hadn‘t seen anyone since I left Gourd Lake and was feeling quite euphoric, having this vast, open region of the IPW all to myself for the day with great weather and no clouds. On the way over to Marten Pk, I put my ipod on to Enya and pretty much drifted on a cloud over to the base of the saddle, it was one of my most enjoyable moments in the mountains, and I don‘t care what anyone thinks about listening to music in the backcountry or a 26 year old straight male listening to Enya, I‘ll even highly recomend it if you ever get the chance, plus it helps you forget about the pain in your legs, completely. As I was nearing Marten, I was presented with a view that reminded me of a scene from "Fellowship of the Ring", where Aragorn and the 4 hobbits are approaching a tower Aragorn calls "the Great Watchtower of Amazul". Here was my favorite shot of the day : Although not very imposing from a distance, a closer up view reveals Marten to live up to its "classic" feel, as Roach likes to describe his more aesthetic routes. Marten is literally on an island all alone and the closer you get, the further you feel from the saddle you were just on moments ago. There is really only one way to get to the summit and its reached by traversing all the way around to its eastern cliffs and accessed via a narrow gully, traversing narrow, exposed cliffs en route. Here is a view East towards Lone Eagle as I neared the summit : This is looking up at the summit from the Northwest, summit us accessed on the other side : And finally, me on the summit with the Hiamovi duo in the background and a significant drop off right behind me : I finally decided to leave this fine part of the IPW and make my way back to the Cascade Creek/Buchanan Trail junction to meet my friends Chris and Nate for an attempt at the Mohling Traverse in the Cirque the next day. Gourd Lake The trek back to the junction was long and my brand new Oakley boots off steepandcheap.com were kiling my ankles, murdering them at this point. By the way I met up with Chris and Nate and reached the Lone Eagle Cirque, I‘d climbed 4500 feet and 22 miles total. I needed a rest, but not before taking this late afternoon shot of the peak before getting some grub : You will not find a nicer looking mountain in Colorado, period. We ate our usual tortolini, filtered water and I was so tired, I literally put half my poles through the loops of my tent, didn‘t stake it down, didn‘t put on the fly, left all my food out in the open and was out cold before the sun went down. Thank god I didn‘t get eaten, but I was too tired to care anyways. Day 2 - Mohling Traverse (attempt) Chris wanted a sunrise summit on Lone Eagle, Nate and I wholeheartedly agreed. Alarm went off at 3:30am and we hit the trail minutes later. The standard route, known as Solo Flight, for Lone Eagle is relatively easy to follow from Crater Lake. You traverse around the climber‘s left side of the steep walled mountain, eventually till you are looking the angry "Iroquios" Peak right in the face, kind of like this : There were some hard, snow fields to cross, two in particular, but didn‘t feel the need for crampons, but did for an axe. We hit the saddle connecting "Limbo" to Lone Eagle, just as the sun was hitting the narrow, intimidating ridge to its summit (which is the low point of the ridge). Here‘s a good view of what we were looking at : As you make your way onto the ridge, the exposure intensifies, especialy if you get off route, which is what we did for about 30 minutes, which were intense to say the least. We had to downclimb about 200 feet onto a grassy ramp leading up to Lone Eagle‘s summit. There was a series of about 4 ledges, one right below the other, along this face of the ridge and this was simply a no fall zone. If we did, we‘d be dead, no way around it. Nate went ahead and scouted out a meager route, which consisted of Chris and I scaling the ledges, sometimes so narrow, only half our shoe was gripping onto with nothing but a whole bunch of air below. To make a long story short, I let out a sigh of relief when I reached safer ground, I won‘t even go into details about how exposed that 30 minutes was. Here‘s a shot of Chris and Nate just below Lone Eagle‘s summit ridge : And then, of course, my favorite view in Colorado This is looking back at the Mohling Traverse from Lone Eagle‘s summit, which is, by a country mile, my favorite summit to date, Chris and Nate shared the same sentiments. To give you an idea of how exposed it is, here‘s Chris and Nate looking 1800 feet literally straight down into Crater Lake. The summit isn‘t really a place to rest, its more a spine of a ridge with a small ledge to rest and hang your feet over looking straight down at the valley below. To make a long story short, I didn‘t feel I had enough physical and mental energy to commit to the Mohling and felt I really needed all of both to successfully complete such an intense route. Chris and Nate made it to "Limbo", which is a cool climb in of itself, but said the route after that got significantly more serious and exposed, so they saved it for another day. I‘m not even gonna bother sitting here and saying this should be the next climb on your list, if you haven‘t figured that out yet, there‘s no use trying to convince. Simply put, this is one of the most spectacular basins in Colorado, or anywhere for that matter and this is truly realized when you reach the high summits. I‘ve never felt so high up there on a peak that is nearly 2500 feet lower than Mt.Elbert. Its a mixed feeling of excitement and utter fear to stand atop Lone Eagle, a feeling I haven‘t experienced on any summit before. Each time I mke my way back to the Indian Peaks, I see more and more clearly what Roach is talking about when he says "The Indian Peaks are RMNP much smaller neighbor to the South, but no less spactacular". Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

The Spectacular Indian Peaks Wilderness

I‘ve read Roach‘s accout of his 15 day trip through the Indian Peaks, from Berthoud Pass to the boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park, and it lit a spark in me to say the least. The IPW is ibviously a popular backpacking/hiking/etc destination, but of all the summits I‘ve reached, I seldom run into many people and each one has ingrained its own unique place in my memory, each being a little different from the rest. Of all the parts I‘ve seen, I‘d have to say, the regions west of the Continental Divide has quickly become my new favorite region in all of Colorado, this past weekend only enhanced my appeal.

My initial plan was to park around the Arapaho Bay region TH and hike in to Stone Lake, giving me easier access to Cooper, Marten, Hiamovi and "Hiamovi Tower". About 3 days before the short trip, my friend Chris, pitched me the idea to include Lone Eagle and do the daunting and very imposing Mohling Traverse over the teeth of "Limbo" to the absolutely ferocious west face of "Iroquios". I was sold pretty easily.

The TH I planned on starting from was Monarch Lake, just along the southern shores of Lake Granby off rt.34. Here is a shot of a late afternoon sunset over the lake :

This a fee area, i must‘ve missed the station, parked at the large parking lot at the end of the road near Monarch Lake, read up on the routes for the weekend and called it a night.

The alarm went off at 3:30am and I was on the trail around 4:30am. This is a very easy trail to follow and one that sees a lot of feet, for the Crater Lake/Lone Eagle Cirque region is a very popular backpacking region. When the trail gets to a flat part of the woods, there is a trail junction to head to Buchanan Pass. This is 3.5 miles of so from the TH, took little over a hour. The next trail junction was marked by a sign for Gourd Lake. This was 2.7 miles and 55 minutes later. After this, the trail heads up a series of realy long switchbacks to Gourd Lake. This was somewhat grueling and monotonous (especialy on the way down).

I reached the lake a little before 8am and was greeted with a solid view of my goal for the day, Cooper Pk :

Gourd Lake is a spectacular sight nestled in the heart of the IPW at 10,820 feet, about 400 feet higher than Crater Lake, yet was warmer due to more exposure to sunlight, if I had more time, this would be an ideal place to swim and there is a cliff off the trail with solid 20-30 feet of cliff jumping with plenty of depth to land.

The trail after the lake, gets increasingly more difficult to follow. My nat‘l geographic map, along with Roach‘s outline in his book, helped me out a great deal and soon enough I was looking Cooper right in the face :

Roach hadn‘t described too much about the South Buttress of Cooper, other than its 3 short pitches of class 4. He didn‘t mention, although quite short, its a pretty commiting climb. I was in for a treat and a humbling surprise.

I was prepared to bushwack a bit and thats exactly what I ended up doing. Its simple bushwacking though, since the South Buttress is easy to locate and easy to get under. The climbing starts pretty much after you leave grass and gets exposed and intense very fast.

Looking back at the base of the buttress towards the Apache massif and Lone Eagle :

I took this directly after finishing the first crux, where I‘m standing is the last safe place to bail if you don‘t feel you can go much further

And this, to me, felt like the crux of the route

To the right of this shot is a sudden, exposed drop off and the moves I was making felt very similar to the ones I remembered making along the Snowmas-Hagerman traverse in the Elks last summer. It was scary, scarier than I thought and I immediately had to get serious, cause I was entering the no fall zone section of the short buttress. It took me come courage and a few awkward foot and hand placements to get over this hump and before I knew it, I was topped out on the buttress. The actual summit of Cooper was about a quarter mile in front of me, passed an open, flat grassy field and a short class 2+ scramble to the surprisingly exposed summit.

The summit blocks and my favorite pack of all time, the Osprey Kestrel

Thr North face of Cooper was a lot steeper and vertical than I would‘ve thought. Roach couldn‘t have described Cooper as a "little adventure" any better.

Here‘s a look over at my next destination, Marten Pk andthe connecting saddle :

And a solid view of Hiamovi and "Hiamovi Tower" to the Northwest :

On a side note, I hadn‘t seen anyone since I left Gourd Lake and was feeling quite euphoric, having this vast, open region of the IPW all to myself for the day with great weather and no clouds. On the way over to Marten Pk, I put my ipod on to Enya and pretty much drifted on a cloud over to the base of the saddle, it was one of my most enjoyable moments in the mountains, and I don‘t care what anyone thinks about listening to music in the backcountry or a 26 year old straight male listening to Enya, I‘ll even highly recomend it if you ever get the chance, plus it helps you forget about the pain in your legs, completely.

As I was nearing Marten, I was presented with a view that reminded me of a scene from "Fellowship of the Ring", where Aragorn and the 4 hobbits are approaching a tower Aragorn calls "the Great Watchtower of Amazul". Here was my favorite shot of the day :

Although not very imposing from a distance, a closer up view reveals Marten to live up to its "classic" feel, as Roach likes to describe his more aesthetic routes. Marten is literally on an island all alone and the closer you get, the further you feel from the saddle you were just on moments ago. There is really only one way to get to the summit and its reached by traversing all the way around to its eastern cliffs and accessed via a narrow gully, traversing narrow, exposed cliffs en route.

Here is a view East towards Lone Eagle as I neared the summit :

This is looking up at the summit from the Northwest, summit us accessed on the other side :

And finally, me on the summit with the Hiamovi duo in the background and a significant drop off right behind me :

I finally decided to leave this fine part of the IPW and make my way back to the Cascade Creek/Buchanan Trail junction to meet my friends Chris and Nate for an attempt at the Mohling Traverse in the Cirque the next day.

Gourd Lake

The trek back to the junction was long and my brand new Oakley boots off steepandcheap.com were kiling my ankles, murdering them at this point. By the way I met up with Chris and Nate and reached the Lone Eagle Cirque, I‘d climbed 4500 feet and 22 miles total. I needed a rest, but not before taking this late afternoon shot of the peak before getting some grub :

You will not find a nicer looking mountain in Colorado, period.

We ate our usual tortolini, filtered water and I was so tired, I literally put half my poles through the loops of my tent, didn‘t stake it down, didn‘t put on the fly, left all my food out in the open and was out cold before the sun went down. Thank god I didn‘t get eaten, but I was too tired to care anyways.

Day 2 - Mohling Traverse (attempt)

Chris wanted a sunrise summit on Lone Eagle, Nate and I wholeheartedly agreed. Alarm went off at 3:30am and we hit the trail minutes later. The standard route, known as Solo Flight, for Lone Eagle is relatively easy to follow from Crater Lake. You traverse around the climber‘s left side of the steep walled mountain, eventually till you are looking the angry "Iroquios" Peak right in the face, kind of like this :

There were some hard, snow fields to cross, two in particular, but didn‘t feel the need for crampons, but did for an axe. We hit the saddle connecting "Limbo" to Lone Eagle, just as the sun was hitting the narrow, intimidating ridge to its summit (which is the low point of the ridge). Here‘s a good view of what we were looking at :

As you make your way onto the ridge, the exposure intensifies, especialy if you get off route, which is what we did for about 30 minutes, which were intense to say the least. We had to downclimb about 200 feet onto a grassy ramp leading up to Lone Eagle‘s summit. There was a series of about 4 ledges, one right below the other, along this face of the ridge and this was simply a no fall zone. If we did, we‘d be dead, no way around it. Nate went ahead and scouted out a meager route, which consisted of Chris and I scaling the ledges, sometimes so narrow, only half our shoe was gripping onto with nothing but a whole bunch of air below. To make a long story short, I let out a sigh of relief when I reached safer ground, I won‘t even go into details about how exposed that 30 minutes was.

Here‘s a shot of Chris and Nate just below Lone Eagle‘s summit ridge :

And then, of course, my favorite view in Colorado

This is looking back at the Mohling Traverse from Lone Eagle‘s summit, which is, by a country mile, my favorite summit to date, Chris and Nate shared the same sentiments.

To give you an idea of how exposed it is, here‘s Chris and Nate looking 1800 feet literally straight down into Crater Lake. The summit isn‘t really a place to rest, its more a spine of a ridge with a small ledge to rest and hang your feet over looking straight down at the valley below.

To make a long story short, I didn‘t feel I had enough physical and mental energy to commit to the Mohling and felt I really needed all of both to successfully complete such an intense route. Chris and Nate made it to "Limbo", which is a cool climb in of itself, but said the route after that got significantly more serious and exposed, so they saved it for another day.

I‘m not even gonna bother sitting here and saying this should be the next climb on your list, if you haven‘t figured that out yet, there‘s no use trying to convince. Simply put, this is one of the most spectacular basins in Colorado, or anywhere for that matter and this is truly realized when you reach the high summits. I‘ve never felt so high up there on a peak that is nearly 2500 feet lower than Mt.Elbert. Its a mixed feeling of excitement and utter fear to stand atop Lone Eagle, a feeling I haven‘t experienced on any summit before. Each time I mke my way back to the Indian Peaks, I see more and more clearly what Roach is talking about when he says "The Indian Peaks are RMNP much smaller neighbor to the South, but no less spactacular".

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

SarahT	Big weekend! 7/18/2008 2:19am Congrats on your successful trip Brian. That route on Cooper sounds like fun, and obviously Lone Eagle is spectacular... I‘ve been meaning to get up it for so long now.
ajkagy	very nice 7/18/2008 4:05am lone eagle has to be one of the most interesting peaks in the state, love the indian peaks, so much solitude not found on 14ers and some of the best scrambles in the state. I gotta give you mad props for attempting the Mohling Traverse. It‘s on my hit list to do someday, the pictures alone definitely do not do it justice.
Floyd	One of the best places in Colorado 7/18/2008 2:42pm Backpacked to Lone Eagle a couple of times now, have yet to try a summit attempt. It‘s on my short list. I love that area. Great trip report and I like your taste in routes.
alanb	Spectacular 7/18/2008 3:01pm Wow Brian this TR is a great read and the pics are amazing. Scenery like that sure makes you stop and think about a few of the rock piles we climb just because they are 14ers.. Looks and sounds like you had an amazing trip.
KBeezer	Awesome 7/18/2008 3:33pm Great TR! Thanks for all the information you gave me on that PM last month regarding the IPW. You captured some great pictures of the peaks we didn‘t do - Lone Eagle is truly spectacular.
lordhelmut	thanks 7/20/2008 6:49pm for the comments, I took some extra time on this TR to show how unique of a region this place was, trying to give some beta at the same time. Thanks for reading and enjoying.
roozers42	Fantastic! 7/20/2008 8:10pm I think this area of the the IPW will be near the top of the list for next summer. Your pictures are wonderful and it was a pleasure to read.
J2TheZ	Kestrel 7/20/2008 8:47pm Gotta love the Osprey Kestrel. I have the 38 and I love it like I love my mother...
uwe	Ok, So After 14‘ers, There Is Life 8/16/2008 12:35am This trip I have to make. Wow. Great trip, pictures, and what a motivator!
Yog	Awesome 8/28/2008 12:37am Very nice report Brian! I have to say this influenced me to hit the IPW this past weekend and I‘m very glad I did. There are so many incredible peaks and great scrambles in this area! Some really good photos you have on this area
Matt	Wow... 1/19/2011 3:38am I was just counting my San Juan blessings, but you‘re showing me that some spectacular stuff is in this IPW you speak of. When you going back...? Great, great stuff, Brian.
Ridge runner	IPW 2/1/2011 12:24am Wow, I must say you seem to find the real gems in the IPW. I really enjoyed this report - your pictures, route descriptions, and personal touch were great. Sounds like you had a perfect weekend. I gotta get out there more often. And there‘s no shame in listening to Enya, I do it all the time when on my own in the mountains.

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