Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

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justiner
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Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by justiner »

This looks amazing - something I'm missing? I was going to backpack in from Crestone (long boring road approach), then descend whatever I feel like back to Crestone. I've summited Milwaukee Peak from the NE (via Marble Mountain), I assume the difficulty is on par.
milwaukee.jpg
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seano
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by seano »

The part between Tijeras and Marble was fun and not too hard at least: https://www.drdirtbag.com/2012/05/24/ti ... do-marble/ . My guess is that the worst part of that route would be crossing the valley (sand?) and getting up into the alpine, but I haven't visited that part of the Sangres.
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by Reg0928 »

I live in Crestone and I jog the low valley portion of that route from Liberty Gate all the time. It's sandy, but not too bad. Some places might be a headache on a bike, but running or hiking it is all good
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by justiner »

How's the bushwhack from the bottom through the trees on the ridge? That may be something that gives me pause - the Sangres can be tough in the trees.
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by Reg0928 »

Never done the bushwhack. I usually run an out and back from the TH to the dunes. The vegetation isn't particularly thick in the area, though
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by andyclimbs »

Have run in that zone a lot. The schwack is surely possible but probably not very pleasant, as few low elevation ridge schwacks in the sangres are. IMO, the far more civilized route would be to take the trail up deadman, up to the west lake, and gain the ridge of there. Then you can also add on Aisilado and the other 13er peak and make the full deadman "round" british style, and drop back down to deadman trail on one side or cottonwood on the other. The run out the Liberty road is sandy but quite nice and beautiful.
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by Marmot72 »

The section of ridge from music to Milwaukee is reportedly quite tough. Many years ago, I asked Steve Gladback about it, and he said that the traverse along the crest did not go; they had to drop a couple hundred feet on the deadman side. It doesn’t look bad from the summit of Music; I just opted not to try it from Steve’s account.
I have phenomenal route-finding abilities. Specifically, I have an uncanny knack for selecting the path of most resistance.
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by justiner »

I've traversed from Music to Milwaukee, mostly on the ridge, until a little aways from Milwaukee, where I finally briefly got off to wrap around. I forgot why exactly, but I remember when I did, there was something akin to a trail, and a bit of snow to contend with. That ridge, as well as the ridge to Broken Hand is some incredible knife edge scrambling.

Looking at Cam and Nicks Sangres track, they exited the ridge just like me at the same point (tho didn't opt to go for Milwaukee. They noted afterwards,

https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=18727
While overlooking South Colony Lakes at the notch between Marble and Milwaukee, we debated whether to drop northeast towards the mine above South Colony on precipitous scree and reascend to Broken Hand Pass from there or ascend to the Milwaukee Peak ridge to sneak around the back (west) side of Broken Hand Peak to then reascend one of Broken Hand's gullies and tag the peak from that direction. Weirdly, there was an unmapped trail beginning right at this lonely notch we were standing at. It offered up passage to Milwaukee's summit ridge and so we followed it, finding out that it turned the corner towards Broken Hand pushing us in the right direction before it dropped off in the direction of lakes below the west ridge of Pico Asilado. Leaving the trail, we made our way around a couple of ribs on Broken Hand's lower southwestern flanks before picking a nice channel to scramble up to gain Broken Hand's southern ridge.
Sometimes it's worth a look-see. Here's my track. Once I got back on the ridge, I dropped my stuff and used a route description from I think Summitpost to summit,
Cursor_and_UE0TA.jpg
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Here's the route,

https://www.summitpost.org/east-face-vi ... ass/159342

I believe there was a fall on this route by someone - was there a TR posted here from his climbing partner? There's a few sketchy moves on the route. There was also a hiker that died I think on this route (or somewhere close) who had been rescued not long before.
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by Marmot72 »

Nice, Justin! Funny that there is actually a trail. Goats, I guess. Might need to revisit that - Music south ridge is such a fun scramble, but it’s short.
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Re: Milwaukee Peak SW Riiiiiidge

Post by 9patrickmurphy »

The Northwest ridge of Milwaukee Peak contains a mysterious trail that is incredibly well-constructed. There is scant information or photos of it, but it exists according to various accounts on this forum and elsewhere and is barely visible on satellite imagery. From what I have been able to gather, it served as a passage between Cottonwood Creek and Sand Creek. On Gaia, it is visible on the "Historical Topo 1980" map, but that is the only formal map I can find it on.

HikingProject describes an off-trail but cairned route up the Sand Creek side, but betrays no information about the Cottonwood Creek side, where the trail is well-constructed.

I find the mystery of this trail captivating, and am super excited to check it out whenever I get down there for the Pico Aislado group. It's so intriguing just how little information there is on it, and how it seems to serve no purpose at all as far as I can tell: I have found no mapped evidence of mining in either Cottonwood Creek or Sand Creek, so why on earth would someone spend so much effort so long ago constructing a trail connecting two unimportant reaches of the wilderness at a pass above 13,000 feet that would only ever be accessible to foot travel? Especially when Medano Pass is only 10 miles to the South over significantly gentler terrain!

I wonder if digging through records in local libraries would betray any additional information, or maybe if someone at the Forest Service knows anything about it... The Sangre de Cristos have quite a few trails that show up on some maps and not on others, some that have been lost to time, and some that reveal themselves only to those who are looking for them. I find this stuff fascinating.
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