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Father's Day 2009 - Mount of the Holy Cross, Halo Ridge:
Last Saturday I met Tom and Sandi Yukman and David and Pattye Volz at the top of Tigiwon Road. I arrived at the trailhead around 730pm and they showed up at 8. We made our way down to the campground and set up our tents for the night. Everyone was excited for the Sunday's hike becuase it was Tom and Sandi's final 14er - #59!
The alarm clocks were ringing at 445am and we were on the trail by 530. The nice thing about hiking this time of year is that the days are long - it was already light. Since a couple of us had already hiked Holy Cross via the standard route, we decided to take a shot at the Halo Ridge route. We knew we were in for a long day, but it was even more strenuous than anticipated.
Somewhere around 11,000 feet we began to cross small snow drifts in the trees. Thankfully, as we climbed above treeline the so disappeared (temporarily). We worked our way up to the top of the ridge and to the Notch Mtn shelter. Apparently one of the windows had been open for sometime because it was filled with snow. It was a cool structure with a huge fireplace inside - I'm just not sure who would be crazy enough to bring enough wood up there for a big fire.
The view from here was fantastic! Unfortunately the coulds hung down over the top 1/3 of the peak covering some of the cross. We took a quick break and put on another layer of clothing.
We made our way across the ridge and over the increasingly higher points towards the summit. We used our ice axes to cross and climb the remaining snowfields.
There were some awesome cornices along the way. This portion of the hike was time consuming and tiring.
A grueling 7 hours after leaving the trailhead (fall creek), we arrived at the summit and the celebration commenced. Tom and Sandi popped open a bottle of champagne as we snapped some pictures.
We made some phone calls and enjoyed the occasion. We had the summit to ourselves. Actually, I don't think anyone else made it to the top on Sunday.
After a while, we started down the standard route on our way back to the camp. This entails descending 4,000 feet to the creek and then hiking back up 1,000 feet to get to the top of half moon pass and then descending that 1,000 feet back to the trailhead. When we left the snow below the summit I switched out of my boots and into my running shoes. This was a mistake because we once again found several patches of snow in the trees on the main mountain and then again on half moon pass. I took a couple spills, just to entertain the bunch of course.
At 530 pm we rolled back into our camp. We were all pretty exhausted, but it was a great hike!
Congrats to Tom and Sandi on finishing the Colorado Fourteeners!
Thanks for letting me join you on your finisher! I hope to hike and ski with you guys in the future!
David and Pattye, it was awesome to meet you guys! Hopefully our paths will cross again as well!
-Smitty
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Congratulations, and way to celebrate on the summit! That's a big bottle to carry ... and then having to lug the bottle all the way back up that 1,000 feet on the return. Cheers!
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