Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Colorado peak questions, condition requests and other info.
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bdloftin77
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Post by bdloftin77 »

susanjoypaul wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 1:32 pm
bdloftin77 wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 12:15 pm
Picture of cave is near bottom of article explaining why Rosa was likely the mountain climbed by Pike.
https://citizenexplorer.org/pike-myster ... ike-climb/

Mt Rosa South Slopes.png
Thanks for sharing that article. I hadn't seen it. The last paragraph:

To commemorate Pike’s climb, Murphy, the Colorado Springs Gazette writer Dave Philipps, and others organized a climb of Mt. Rosa on November 26, 2006, the bicentennial of Pike’s attempt. The party slept overnight in the cave and honored Pike by getting up the next morning and hiking to the Pike’s Peak, finishing what the hungry explorers had started two-hundred years before.

I was on that hike along with Philipps, Gazette photographer Christian Murdoch, my old hiking buddy Doug Hatfield, my other old hiking buddy Eric Hunter, Dan Anderson, Cathy McKeen, and another guy whose name I can't recall at the moment. Haven't thought about it in years, but it was quite a trip. We started where Murphy thought Pike began, somewhere near Fort Carson, and it took us three days to summit.

It was cold out, just nine degrees, as we approached the top of Pikes Peak. The snow started coming down and the road was closed, but they let our friend Bill Brown drive up and get us. I have the newspapers around here somewhere...Phillips and Murdoch carried a laptop and camera equipment and somehow filed stories every day. As for the cave, I think just two guys slept in it. It's not a big cave.

Mount Rosa...it's a great hike and a beautiful peak!
Nice, I didn't know that! So cool!! How was the hike from near Ft Carson to the top of Rosa? Lots of bushwhacking and slow going probably. From Rosa to Pikes, did you guys probably follow the Foresters trail that skirts Almagre, then the general route of the "Missing Link" trail to Barr Camp, and along the Barr trail to the summit? Or did you follow more the route that the cog railway takes?

I'm glad you guys were able to get a ride down! Would have been quite the intense Zebulon Pike experience otherwise spending a night on the mountain in the cold and snow. Yep.. I lay in the cave just to see what it was like, and it's pretty snug. Super snug for a few grown men for sure. Do you happen to have GPX of your hike? That'd be cool to follow on google earth. And maybe in real life, though sounds like a pretty tough few days. If you ever find the newspapers and decided to scan them, it'd be cool to read that story! Thanks for sharing.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Post by susanjoypaul »

bdloftin77 wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 2:10 pm
Nice, I didn't know that! So cool!! How was the hike from near Ft Carson to the top of Rosa? Lots of bushwhacking and slow going probably. From Rosa to Pikes, did you guys probably follow the Foresters trail that skirts Almagre, then the general route of the "Missing Link" trail to Barr Camp, and along the Barr trail to the summit? Or did you follow more the route that the cog railway takes?

I'm glad you guys were able to get a ride down! Would have been quite the intense Zebulon Pike experience otherwise spending a night on the mountain in the cold and snow. Yep.. I lay in the cave just to see what it was like, and it's pretty snug. Super snug for a few grown men for sure. Do you happen to have GPX of your hike? That'd be cool to follow on google earth. And maybe in real life, though sounds like a pretty tough few days. If you ever find the newspapers and decided to scan them, it'd be cool to read that story! Thanks for sharing.
I don't remember all the details (it was a while ago) but there was a lot of steep, nasty bushwhacking early on (I guess that prepared me for Fremont County), hiking cross country, then following the tracks at the end around Windy Point and up to the summit. I brought Zebulon Pike's diaries (copied them from a book) and read his entries out loud each day, on the dates that corresponded with ours. The weather and conditions were nearly identical!

I found the papers. I'll post photos of the November 26th ones here (and in the next post). There are more articles and photos in the November 27th, 28th, and 29th editions. If I get time I'll post those later this week (got a book due tomorrow and need to finish the last chapter).
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

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The other two pages from that edition. Kind of funny, looking at this now. Hahaha. What a trip.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Post by bdloftin77 »

susanjoypaul wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 2:51 pm I don't remember all the details (it was a while ago) but there was a lot of steep, nasty bushwhacking early on (I guess that prepared me for Fremont County), hiking cross country, then following the tracks at the end around Windy Point and up to the summit. I brought Zebulon Pike's diaries (copied them from a book) and read his entries out loud each day, on the dates that corresponded with ours. The weather and conditions were nearly identical!

I found the papers. I'll post photos of the November 26th ones here (and in the next post). There are more articles and photos in the November 27th, 28th, and 29th editions. If I get time I'll post those later this week (got a book due tomorrow and need to finish the last chapter).
Thank you for sharing! That was a fun read, and the route map and gear differences are intriguing as well. Congrats on your successful reenactment of his attempt! Looking forward to the next articles if you do get time to post them, and good luck on your last chapter.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

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bdloftin77 wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 3:36 pm Thank you for sharing! That was a fun read, and the route map and gear differences are intriguing as well. Congrats on your successful reenactment of his attempt! Looking forward to the next articles if you do get time to post them, and good luck on your last chapter.
Sure, Ben. I don't have a track of the route - I wish I did. I didn't even own a GPS back then. Dan made a track but I don't know where he is now...think he moved out of state.

Sorry about all the distortion in these photos. I need to take the papers to the print shop and throw them on a plotter someday.

Here's the story from our first day. It was the worst with all the bushwhacking and vertical gain with heavy packs. I think Bill and Cathy slept in the cave on Rosa. Bill didn't bring a tent. Cathy and I were going to share a tent but somehow the poles were left behind in the shuffle at the start. She ended up in the cave and I rolled up like a burrito in my tent fly and passed out on my sleeping pad. This was late November, so it was pretty cold. I never drink when I hike but I remember something about Wild Turkey shots that night. It got windy overnight too but we were somewhat protected by the trees. We were all kind of amazed, thinking about what Pike and his team went through on this hike with their limited food and gear.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Post by susanjoypaul »

Two more pics from that day...Dave and Christian did a great job with these stories.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

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Great stuff, Susan!
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

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12ersRule wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 12:08 pm Great stuff, Susan!
Thanks, David. Jeez, this part:

"It began to snow and we sought shelter under the side of a projecting rock, where we, all four, made a meal on one partridge, and a piece of deer's ribs the ravens had left us, being the first we had eaten in that 48 hours."

I would have starved to death on a real Zeb Pike hike.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

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Story from the second day of our hike up Pikes Peak. I was right about it being windy overnight - 40 mph winds. Now I remember people's tents collapsing. The next morning, some people had to scramble down the slope to retrieve some of their belongings. I think John went to the Rosa summit with us, but then he turned around and hiked back down to his car at the Wye Campground. The article mentions that Bill was the only one without a tent but that isn't exactly true. Cathy rolled up in the tent (sans poles) and I rolled up in the tent fly.

I do remember approaching that gate in the snow. There was a note on it - like a piece of notebook paper with something handwritten on it. Cannot for the life of me remember who had left it or what it said.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

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susanjoypaul wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 8:12 am Story from the second day of our hike up Pikes Peak. I was right about it being windy overnight - 40 mph winds. Now I remember people's tents collapsing. The next morning, some people had to scramble down the slope to retrieve some of their belongings. I think John went to the Rosa summit with us, but then he turned around and hiked back down to his car at the Wye Campground. The article mentions that Bill was the only one without a tent but that isn't exactly true. Cathy rolled up in the tent (sans poles) and I rolled up in the tent fly.

I do remember approaching that gate in the snow. There was a note on it - like a piece of notebook paper with something handwritten on it. Cannot for the life of me remember who had left it or what it said.
Oh man! I hope they make it! :)

40 mph winds sounds like a pretty rough night of sleep. Though waking up above the clouds sounds like a pretty cool experience. Glad you guys were able to finally get permission to cross the Colorado Springs watershed, though it’s surprising it took such a long time!
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Post by 12ersRule »

Thanks for the coordinates, Ben. I did find the cave. I was thinking, it has to be right here, and I was 60 feet off when I checked, but I probably never would've found it without the waypoint.

The south side of Rosa was completely dry. Did some peaks out there where I climbed on the north side. Encountered some snow around 10,500 or so, but not a whole lot. Saw a few names in the very cool register up there, guessing they probably came from the south side. I'm thinking you'd be good to go if you wanted to hike from the north.
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Re: Mt. Rosa trail conditions

Post by aholle88 »

Very cool Susan!! Awesome how even the clouds ended up being similar to Zeb’s trip! I have been meaning to do a similar thing with hiking up Pikes from Bear creek/old Jones park to the south ridge since that was how Katherine Bates did it way back. It’s awesome seeing the history of pikes and recreating some of those old routes. J Inness Hetzler has posted quite a bit of neat history of Pikes and the springs foothills mountains on the FB page over the years.
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