California, Huerfano, Iron Nipple and Lindsey

May 16-17, 2020

After finishing the 14'ers last summer, I needed a new goal to set my sights on for 2020. Unfortunately I can only work on winter 14'ers 3 months a year:(. So I'm hereby declaring this the Centennial Summer.

This trip was the first time I went hiking since mid March, and life started moving towards normal and away from Covid 19 lockdown. I knew I'd be a little slow and rusty after a 2 month hiatus, so looked for something on the short and easy side. Camping at the Lily Lake trailhead fit the bill nicely, the Sangre's had a light year of snow so it would be mostly melted out, and I could knock out 2 centennials and stand atop a 14'er all in the same weekend.

I arrived at the TH Friday afternoon early enough to find a great spot for my toaster, I was surprised how many vehicles were camping, as well as at the TH.

No snow on the road at all. In 2019 I did Lindsey on first day of June and there were lots of impassable drifts, I had to park a few miles from the TH then.

Saturday's goal was to get Huerfano and Iron Nipple, I wasn't sure if I'd go after Lindsey as well, all depended on how I felt after the two 13'ers. Started up the road a little after 8. Met a couple of college age kids from California that were going after Lindsey. I wore my winter boots, figured I'd likely encounter some snow at some point. Took my axe and micro spikes as well, though wouldn't end up using them.

First part of the trail is pretty straightforward, and no snow kept things moving along.

The trail follows the river/stream/creek/whatever you want to call it, then bares left to begin gaining elevation. This is the first area that had some patchy snow. Mostly avoidable, or had nice packed footsteps through it.

As I made my way to rejoin Lindsey’s standard route, which had been my plan, I came across a boulder field that looked like a shortcut. Normally I don't look for shortcuts, and have even occasionally been known to look for ways to add distance to my hikes. Decided to give it a go. Looked like it would cut out some snowfield action as well.

I'm not the greatest navigator around, and rely on Google Maps and GPX files pretty regularly. I'm not sure I could have climbed some of the peaks I've done without GPX files leading me, particularly in winter. My basic rule of thumb for safety/risk has always been "don't climb up something you aren't willing to climb down, and don't climb down something you aren't willing to climb up", basically always giving me the option to backtrack. It has worked pretty well for me so far. My shortcut put me crossing along the north side of Iron Nipple, which had some challenge to it.

Some pretty challenging moves getting around the nipple's south side, and some decent exposure to boot. Not what I had planned for the day, but I wasn't going to backtrack. Really, the worst that could happen is I could fall and endure a painful death, right?

Felt some relief after getting to the other side of the nipple, and now Huerfano was in sight.

From here the route to Huerfano is pretty straightforward. No shortcuts necessary.

Departed Huerfano, next planned stop was Iron Nipple. Pretty straightforward to summit the nipple, just a little class 2ish fun.

After summitting Iron Nipple, was feeling pretty good, so decided to get Lindsey. This would be my first time climbing Lindsey without meaningful snow.

Was looking forward to Lindsey's ridge, its great low risk fun.

As I started up Lindsey I didn't realize I was on the trail leading towards the gully rather than the ridge. Just before I realized that I needed to get up to gain the ridge, I ran into the 2 California kids. They literally had no idea how to reach Lindsey's summit. No map, no GPX file, no set of awesomely helpful pictures from 14ers.com. They let me pass and followed me. We made a hard right turn and went straight up to the ridge. When we got halfway up to the ridge, one of them asks me "how do you feel about down climbing this?". I told them there would be tougher sections ahead, and worried just a bit that these kids might be in over their heads. They continued to follow me. They had each done 1 14'er in California, I don't recall which one. Told them Lindsey was an odd choice for newbies to this.

Reached Lindsey's summit without issue, with California kids in tow. I'm a little faster than average, and slowed down a little to make sure my newfound partners could see my route/moves. They didn't slow me down as much as I expected.

Descending Lindsey was pretty straightforward, I took a few shots of my impromptu hiking partners on the way down to send to them later.

They were a little slower on the down than the up, but I waited until we passed the notch to leave them in my dust, there isn't anything beyond that point that is very dangerous. I followed Lindsey's standard route back to camp. College kids passed by about an hour later, so know they got down okay.

The next day I woke up and headed to California Peak. I'm not sure why, but I had in my head that this was going to be a much shorter hike than the previous day's.

Getting to Lily lake had some routefinding challenges, there was a lot more snow to get around, and in some cases had to go straight through. My winter boots weren't completely dried out from previous day so I wore my summer boots, so just dealt with wet feet most of the day.

After reaching Lily lake, there really isn't so much of a trail to California, but I had a GPX route just to be safe, even though its really pretty straightforward. From Lily lake there is a nasty slope of scree and loose rocks of various sizes. It just kinda sucks. Oh how I dreamed of being on the 2,800 ft. of greatness while ascending this. I'm naming this section the 1,100 ft of shittiness. I don't know if its 1,100 ft, but it felt like it.

After getting to the top of the 1,100 FOS, just a few ups and downs along easy ridges to reach my objective. First was 13,660 A.

Following the ridges to California is super easy and straightforward, and no snow to navigate.

The return was pretty easy, other than descending the 1,100 FOS, which sucked even more than the ascent. Great weekend.

Thanks for reading.