6/23/18
~9 miles
~4000 feet elevation gain
Start: 5:30am
Finish: 5:30pm (?)
Partners: Nancy, Joel, Paula, Tiffany, Maya, Zero, and Sprinkles

At some point last year when I was injured I took a hard look at my hiking future. I was in a bad place, demoralized, and had lost most of my confidence. Every hike and run last year was a struggle. I was close to a few milestones I'd been chasing every since I started climbing peaks but the struggle to even climb one mountain or do a 5k was hard to take emotionally. Nepal finally helped turn things around but it was a long haul to get to a better place. My Colorado summits last year amounted to 2 13ers on one hike. It wasn't going to take much to improve on that total.

2018 so far has taken a much different path. I was able to pick up running again. I ran my first two half marathons. Spring hiking season went well. Suddenly I was closing in on one of the milestones I never thought I'd reach when I started hiking. Paula and I climbed Red Mtn C near Breckenridge for my 98th 13er and a plan emerged. Since the San Juans were closed and the train wasn't running we knew it might be difficult to do my remaining centennials this year. We needed a plan B. Let's celebrate 100 13ers instead.....and what better way to do that than climb a couple of Prizes.

We sent out an invite. Joel, Nancy, and Tiffany were in for our plan. The weather forecast for the day we wanted turned out to have 0% chance of storms. We drove down to the Sawatch on Friday night and set up camp just below the gate at the wilderness boundary and went to sleep for an early wake up call. We had planned to start at 5am but after getting all the humans and dogs ready we started out a little late at 5:30am.

We did a short walk the 1/8 mile to the wilderness gate and then started following the trail up into the valley. The trail was easy to follow and we had a nice mellow hike to treeline where we got our first view of Booby Prize ahead of us. We contoured around the slopes of Middle Mountain which Joel, Nancy, and Paula had already climbed. We had decided that we would climb Booby Prize first and then continue on to Prize BM. Across the valley to the south we could see a trail heading up the Booby Prize / 12,862 saddle.

Upon reaching the saddle we could see the remaining route up Booby Prize. From here it was just a few hundred feet of grass and talus to the summit. Since the weather forecast was so good we just set a very casual pace and enjoyed ourselves.

We finally reached the top of Booby Prize and enjoyed the view. And bacon. I'd made maple and brown sugar bacon for this hike and it was delicious. This really is a gorgeous part of the Sawatch. No register on Booby Prize though which was kind of disappointing.

Our hiking mascot was very happy to summit his namesake peak. He was hoping there'd be another Booby up here so he could do a dance.

Unfortunately we had to tell him that we hadn't brought him a friend.

We weren't sure how the ridge down from Booby Prize to 13,090 would go. We thought there might be a bit of Class 3 but pictures from previous reports hadn't been clear on that point. Also, we had 3 dogs with us so we were going to have to find the easiest way regardless. About 1/3 of the way down to the saddle we ran into a tower. Joel investigated the low route while Maya and I went up the tower to see if it went. As I hit the top it was obvious there was no way it was dog friendly so we headed back down towards the rest of the group.

Eventually we contoured low around the tower on talus and found an easy Class 2 route down to the saddle.

We were able to contour about 100 feet below the summit of 13,090 towards Prize BM. On our way over we had a few discussions about whether everyone wanted to continue over to Prize. It didn't look easy and the saddle was pretty low. Eventually Paula and I continued on alone and started our ascent back up to Prize with the dogs. As we got closer Prize started to look a bit easier but we still weren't sure how it would go for the dogs.

I can't describe our route up Prize very well. Let's just say we found one that worked. It mostly involved staying on the left side of the ridge and crossed some dirt gullies. We kept taking it 30-50 feet at a time and picking our way something that looked likely to work for dogs. At one point I saw Maya on a snowfield and couldn't figure out how she'd reached it. Turned out there was a nice ramp next to the snow I couldn't see.

At one point when we were about 100 feet from the summit I told Paula that we were either going to summit just fine or fail utterly 20 feet from the summit. Just below the summit we had to do a few Class 3 moves where 2 dogs got a short boost. Then we crested a false summit and saw the real summit just a short distance away.

It was amazing to share this one with Paula and all of the dogs. I really never thought I'd do this many peaks when I started hiking. I had no idea where this journey would take me. I've had a huge number of ups and downs in my life and hiking got me through a lot of hard times. Prize BM was a fitting peak for #100. A long journey led to some wonderful Prizes. If I hadn't been hurt last year it wouldn't have happened this way. I'm really glad it did and I got to share it.

On the way back we saw some blue on the ridge near 13,090 and wondered if the rest of the group had waited for us. It turned out that they had. Nancy and Joel brought up champagne and grapes. We ate some more cookies and enjoyed a small celebration on the ridge as a group. It was amazing that they waited for us and it was fun to share it with them.

We were all feeling pretty good after a bit of champagne so we decided it was time to start heading down. As Nancy put it, the champagne escalated the hike to another level.

We decided that the ridge between 13,090 and Grand wouldn't go for the dogs so we headed back to the saddle with Booby Prize and took the trail down from there. We had nice hike back out to the car and finished off our long day.

Thanks to my partners for sharing this one with me. It was an amazing day out. It may not have been the milestone I was looking for this summer but I was to happy to celebrate this one instead. Maybe now I can focus on 100 12ers.