First off, I want to introduce myself and I hope this is just the beginning of many posts. My name is Matt, and I currently live in the black hole of sorrow known as Illinois. I have lived here my whole life, not because I want to per se, but because of family and work obligations. My father took us on a family trip to Colorado in 1992 and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was home. We went back nearly every single summer until the early aughts, when college and starting a family of my own further encased my feet in cement and prevented me from living where I belong. In those trips, my father and I climbed a handful of 14ers (Antero, La Plata, Sneffels, and Castle for myself, and all of the aforementioned peaks plus Yale and Princeton for my father). I have finally reached a point in my life where things are a little more settled down, and my goal is to finish climbing the remaining 14ers. Not because I want to, but because I have to. When we did the first handful of 14ers, we made it up and back, but from the trip reports on this site and elsewhere, I can say with 100% certainty that we were complete amateurs and our ascension techniques needed a lot of refinement. Reading through many of the posts on this site, I am painfully aware of the increase in human activity in the Colorado climbing world, but I was hoping that since I climbed my first 14er in 1996 and my most recent in 2003, that I am grandfathered in and not a complete noob! I’m just on a brief 16-17 year hiatus. I am 36 now, so i have a couple decades of good climbing left in me, provided I do it in a manner that’s safe, efficient, and with a much greater appreciation and understanding of what it truly takes to stand on each of the summits. It needs to be done right, out of respect to the climbers who have done it before me, out of respect for myself, and more importantly, out of respect to the mountains that serve as the constant hum of call for all of us.
As a lurker on this site for a few months now, I have been wanting to post a trip report about my father’s ascent and descent of Mt. Princeton in July of 1997. It was actually the same day that Princeton University had their 250th anniversary Princeton climb with over 200 participants. This isn’t a prototypical “trip report” in the sense that it is a third person narrative, although I was involved with parts of the epic fail that was this trip. Because of this, I do not want to post this in an actual trip report less someone read it and assume that what transpired is a viable option for a descent of Mt. Princeton. I also know that the accuracy in details is only to the best of our recollection of an event that occurred 22 years ago. Rather, I feel this can serve as a cautionary tale of how by doing pretty much everything wrong, a simple class 2 hike can turn into quite an ordeal.
To begin, my father violated several critical mountaineering rules...pretty much mountain climbing/hiking 101. He climbed in inclement weather, he climbed alone without proper preparation, and he did not give us an estimate of when to expect his return. This isn’t even touching upon the woefully inadequate equipment and supplies that he did and did not bring with him. He packed up his things the night before and set out to climb extremely early, around 3:30AM. The weather was very cloudy, with the tops of the Sawatch giants absolutely obscured with low-level stratus clouds throughout the entire day. It rained off and on, nothing too extreme, but a steady drizzle that served as an irritant.
He chose to ascend the entire Mt. Princeton auto road, parking at the bottom and hiking up the length of the road before exiting onto the trail that serves as the standard East Slopes approach. The climb up was actually pretty uneventful, with my father summiting at approximately 11:30AM. He isn’t the fastest climber by any means, subscribing to the “slow and steady” mantra, but he made it to the top of his 5th 14er. Recalling his trip later, he remarked about the incredibly large amount of people he encountered that day and how it was so tremendously foggy at some points that he could barely see five feet. It was from these people that he learned that it was the Princeton University anniversary climb, hence the larger-than-normal crowds.
After spending approximately 15 minutes on the summit to recuperate some strength for the descent, he gathered his belongings and began heading down. Here is where the “fun” began. The standard route begins descending in a slight southeast direction before crossing the slopes. However, there is a significantly steeper ridge that branches off of this standard route that also heads in a southeast direction, putting him on a trajectory that began moving more south than east (yellow line #1). He recalled how he was sort of overcome with a sense that something was wrong, but due to the extremely low visibility, he could not tell that the ridge he was supposed to be on was now above him to climber’s left. At about the same time he told himself that this was far steeper and more difficult than the ascent, he noticed that there were no other climbers anywhere near him. He heard no one and was overcome with an eerie sense of silence. He called out, and as he was waiting for a response that never came, the clouds parted and he had a spectacular view of Mt. Antero soaring above the Chalk Creek valley. He knew immediately that he was not where he was supposed to be.
He attempted to retrace his steps and go back up the ridge that he had descended, but it was far too steep and covered with loose talus and scree, with every step forward turning into one-and-a-half steps backwards. He knew that this absolutely was not going to work. However, he knew exactly where he was. He wasn’t lost in the traditional sense of the word, since he could now see below the clouds and knew that the Chalk Creek Road lay below him. He decided to descend the ridge he was on (yellow line #1) and exit via a gully (Cascade Canyon) into the Chalk Creek valley. There are no trails in this area, and he was armed only with a national forest map, a copy of Gerry Roach’s 14ers guide, and a compass to aid in navigation. He carefully descended the increasingly steep and rugged terrain and eventually encountered a gully that he knew would be there. Breathing a sigh of relief he kept descending until the gully cliffed out a few hundred feet above Chalk Creek in Cascade Canyon at the Agnes Vaille Waterfall. Lacking any expertise or equipment capable of getting him out of that situation, he realized that he would need to reascend the gully, cross over the ridge he was previously on to the west, and descend a different gully down towards the valley, hoping that it didn’t cliff out again (red line #2).
He crossed up and over into the next gully, equally remote and equally steep and rugged as the first gully. It was now getting late, approximately 6PM or so, with daylight rapidly vanishing due to the clouds that still hung heavy in the air. He had no flashlight or any other way to illuminate the area he was walking and had to rely on the dim twilight. After hiking through a boulder-strewn canyon without any signs of life, he began to realize that it was angling tremendously to the southeast and his internal compass was telling him that this gully was going to intersect the gully that he had descended hours earlier. Sure enough, this gully entered into the gully that cliffed out at Agnes Vaille Falls.
Beginning to feel pangs of apprehension and hunger at this point, he stood near the top of the falls and contemplated his next move. It was at this time that he noticed a pair of headlights pulling into the Agnes Vaille Falls parking area hundreds of feet below him. He could still see enough to watch some people as the got out of their cars and he began frantically waving his jacket above his head and shouting, desperately trying to get their attention. Much to his relief, he saw one of the cars flash their headlights, immediately believing that he had gotten their attention and help would soon be on its way. It was now getting dark as he sat down and waited. About half an hour later, he watched as the headlights of both vehicles came back on, and the vehicles drove away. He didn’t know if they hadn’t actually seen them, or if perhaps they were just impressed that he was up there and were giving an impromptu tip of the cap, but either way he knew that he needed to keep going.
He ate half of his meager rations (a bag of Cheez-It crackers and a Nestle Crunch bar) and realized that his water was gone, but knew that he had to keep moving because it was now getting colder and he had nothing for an overnight stay. He turned and began ascending the gully he had just exited from (green line #3), again planning to cross the next ridge to the west and descend the next gully he encountered (Grouse Canyon). He ascended past where he had originally entered hours earlier and encountered an extremely steep headwall and knew that he would have to climb it. In the dark he began the impossibly slow ascent, with no visual aids and no way to see the terrain he was on. He used tree roots and rocks as handholds and slowly, inch by inch, crawled his way up the almost 1000 feet of steeply angled terrain, twice having the straps of his camcorder case (maybe not the best idea to lug that with him) snag on exposed rocks and almost pull him backwards off the terrain and down several hundred feet of boulders, trees, and snags. Eventually after hours of climbing that was far beyond anything he had ever done in terms of difficulty, he reached the crest of the next ridge, which was above treeline. It was around midnight at this point, and he had nothing but half a bag of Cheez-Its and a Nestle Crunch bar in his stomach, his water had run out hours ago, he had no light source, and had been hiking for almost twenty continuous hours, of which 10 or more were completely off-trail. He collapsed into a heap of exhaustion, using his backpack as a pillow and covering his upper body with his light jacket, and immediately passed out.
Meanwhile, my mother, sister, and I were back at our campground at the Buena Vista KOA. Around 3:30-4PM, I remember telling my mom and sister that he should be back any minute, and was surprised that he wasn’t already. Having done a handful of 14ers of similar difficulty already, I had a rough idea of when to expect his return. 4 drifted into 5, which drifted into 6. Then 7 came...obviously we were worried, but as a teenager, I had nothing but blind faith in my father. I knew that he wasn’t stupid (although this report may indicate otherwise lol), and having religiously read Mr. Roach’s book, I knew that Princeton wasn’t a dangerous mountain and that it was a relatively popular climb. There was nowhere to fall off from, no dangerous cliffs or massive snowfields that needed to be crossed, and furthermore, there were many people up there who would have seen or heard something if anything went awry. I immediately thought that he must have spent the night somewhere up there with another group of climbers because the weather was so crummy and he would never be foolish enough to attempt a descent or even finish the ascent if visibility was as bad as I thought it was, judging by the cloud cover. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
It grew dark and he was still nowhere to be found. Not knowing what exactly to do, we decided to drive to the trailhead to see if his car was still there. We climbed into our Jeep and drove out to the trailhead and sure enough, his Wrangler was still there, as well as half a dozen other vehicles. In many ways, this was comforting, because we immediately thought that “oh good, he’s not the only one who is still up there.” This added credence to my belief that he sought shelter with other climbers and was safe and waiting until morning to descend. We decided that just in case he did wait to descend from somewhere high on the slopes until the weather cleared (the clouds moved out around 8-8:30PM), we would sleep in the Jeep next to his car.
About midnight I woke to the sound of my mother and sister hysterically crying as they started the car. In a daze I asked what was happening, and they said someone is screaming. There was a woman screaming somewhere. My heart immediately began racing and then I heard it too. A deafening scream that seemed to penetrate everything and come from everywhere at once. It was a sound that to this day makes me shiver when I hear it. I’m not a firm believer in the supernatural, but I immediately thought of some malevolent spectre looming in the dark woods around us. My mother immediately put the car in drive and drove down the road at speeds far too dangerous for the road and time of night. It wasn’t until years later while working on a research project of animal calls on YouTube with my students that I heard the noise again: it was a mountain lion.
The next morning, we awoke and drove to the trailhead again to ask any climbers if they had seen my dad. At around 9:30AM, we stopped a climber as he was getting back into his car and he informed us that he had been up and down already and had only seen people ascending and nobody that matched his description. This is when we acknowledged what we had been lying to ourselves about since the night before: something is wrong. No one in our family had a cell phone at this time, so we drove back to our campground and asked the front desk clerk where the nearest ranger station was so we could report our concerns. To this day, I am not sure why nobody just called instead of us deciding to drive down to Salida, but that’s what we were preparing to do. We first decided to stop at the trailhead again to leave a note on his car in case he somehow did show up (seems foolish in retrospect), and as we were beginning to drive down the road towards the Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort, now around 1:30PM, we saw him walking towards us in just his t-shirt, shorts, and backpack, massive weeping cuts all over his forearms and legs.
My father woke up early in the morning, obviously having a brutal night of sleep with talus serving as a mattress. He was freezing cold and desperately thirsty. He descended the west side of the ridge, far less steep than the headwall he ascended the night before, but still extremely taxing on legs that were trembling with exhaustion every step (yellow line #4). When he reached a lower elevation, he began slurping water out of concave leaves, inhaling any liquid he could in order to help stave his unquenchable thirst. He was completely out of it, head spinning and body aching. Slowly, with a bit of water and the rest of his meager bag of Cheez-Its, he began to regain his senses and solidify his plans. At this point he noticed that both his jacket and walking stick were gone. He couldn’t recall when he’d even seen them last. But they were gone and he certainly wasn’t about to retrace his steps, even if he physically could.
He kept his descent down a steep gully (Grouse Canyon), worrying that he needed to get out of the trees at this point in case SAR had begun looking for him. The gully he was in was incredibly narrow and his camcorder strap again snagged and almost pulled him backwards. He finally said “enough is enough” and took off the bag with the camcorder and put it on a ledge on a steep hillside. Provided it hasn’t been avalanched over or buried in rocks, that camcorder is probably still on the South slopes of Mount Princeton (gold medal if someone is crazy enough to find it!). The dry gully eventually reached a flowing stream, which he turned into and began following it south/southeast. As he emerged from the trees into a more open area, he heard a large animal growl from somewhere off to his left. He quickly kept walking, slowly as the animal moved in the opposite direction. He never stopped to look, and to this day wonders what exactly it was who was very clearly letting my dad know that his presence was not welcomed.
My father descended Grouse Canyon until once again, he reached a dead end and couldn’t continue. Back to the drawing board. Up and over the next ridge to the west (red line #5). He could see that further up the canyon the terrain got significantly steeper and he did not want to have to climb another headwall like the one he did in the dark last night, so he ascended a steep hillside to the ridge above him, bushwhacking all the way. He finally gained the ridge and immediately began his descent into Waldon Gulch (green line #5). Rather than going down another steep hillside, he chose a prominent ridge that angled southwest towards the town of Alpine, which he could see clear as day. An incredible sense of elation filled him as he realized that the terrain had eased considerably. And of course, as if on cue, he stumbled without his walking stick and tumbled a significant distance down the ridge. As he came to a stop he just laughed, looking at the gnarly cuts all over his legs and hands as they began bleeding. He slowly stood up, testing each limb. Sore, but nothing broken.
He finished the walk down Waldon Gulch, which deposited him into someone’s backyard in the town of Alpine. He started walking across the yard, quietly apologizing to the homeowner and hoping that he or she could take sympathy in his plight. He knew the road was due south and he was out of the woods (literally and figuratively), and nothing was going to stand in his way. He stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the deep, bassy bark of a German Shepard as he bound from the house straight towards him. “Great, I made it out alive and now I’m going to be attacked by a dog.” My dad just knelt with his hands outspread and the dog ran up to him, tail wagging, licking his face and just needing a good belly rub. My dad couldn’t help but laugh and gave the dog a good scratch and belly rub before telling him that he needed to get home. The dog sat and watched as my father walked through the yard and out to Chalk Creek Road. He turned left and began walking east, exhausted, dehydrated, but alive.
He reached the Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort and began climbing up the hill to the Mount Princeton Auto Road parking lot when he recognized a Jeep descending towards him. A smile crossed his face as we pulled up, all of us jumping out to hug him as he silently held each one of us tightly. He climbed into the passenger seat and the first words out of his mouth were “does anyone have any water?”
There are a tremendous amount of lessons to be learned from this experience. From my father’s perspective, he learned to just call it when the weather is unfavorable, climb with other people until he is absolutely comfortable in what he is doing, have a set return time that is coordinated with the people in camp, pack more and better food that provides a quick caloric boost, bring a water filtration system, don’t waste weight and space with unnecessary items (camcorder), bring a first-aid kit, and bring more appropriate layers of clothing. From my end I learned to not just blindly trust people’s judgment, even if they’re your father. If something feels wrong, it very well could be wrong. I also learned to have the information on hand to contact the necessary agencies (SAR) in case something goes awry. We got lucky. My dad is still with me and we just got back from Colorado a month ago. No 14ers on this trip since I was lugging along my young kids, but just the fact that he’s alive, that he gets to spend quality time with his grandkids, is by far the most important thing. I cannot stress it enough: he...we…got extremely lucky.
As I said 86 paragraphs ago, my goal is to finish the remaining 54 14ers, and do it in the absolute right way. Well, as right as one can do it since there is always the unquantifiable unknown. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take basic precautions commensurate with my skill level: I won’t travel alone, never will I travel without a way for someone to know my approximate location, never will I travel in inclement weather, never will I fail to bring minimum appropriate supplies (water filtration, food, emergency clothing), and never will I fail to recognize my limits and be afraid to turn around if things get hairy. Have a Plan A, B, C, and D. Climbing and hiking in the mountains can turn from an exciting adventure into an off-rhythm dance with Death at a moment’s notice.
As I prepare for Summer of 2020 when I resume my climbing “career,” I’ll have a ton of questions for those on this site who know far more than I ever will, particularly in regards to basic equipment and particular routes. I want to say thank you to all of the board members here who actively engage in the community for providing such incredibly detailed information about the mountains we all love. To me, despite living 1,200 miles to the east, the mountains of Colorado are home. Thank you for letting me be a guest in your home, and I will do whatever I can to be the most grateful guest I can possibly be.
Regards,
Matt
