Pilot Mountain to Isolation Peak

Prelude:

Generally RMNP isn't my preferred area of scrambling because I always end up using some amount of friction moves on granite slabs (no likey), which was the reason for our bail off the Shelf Cirque Traverse this year... guess I'll have to spend more time in the flatirons this fall. Anyway, we had some friends in the area and I found a bit of information on an interesting looking scramble up and over Pilot Mountain. It worked out that our mutual friends wanted to explore a portion of the LA Freeway, so I put together a link-up on Caltopo and off we went! In the Mountain Project post for Pilot Mtn, the author described a spectacular knife edge heading west off of the 'summit' (it's a bump on a ridge that nobody cares about... except that it has a sweet knife edge), but approached via the lower-angle NE Slopes (e.g. wrap around the base of Pilot Mountain before following a NE-facing couloir up to about 12,500', then cutting East towards the summit along the knife edge). My hankering for contrived nonsense lead me to wonder whether the East Ridge would provide reasonable passage to the summit. Now, 'reasonable' is relative, but it did go (more details on that later) and the knife edge was indeed, spectacular. Past the knife edge, the remaining terrain up to the continental divide can be kept a mostly Class 3. From there, we descended to Boulder-Grand Pass to The Cleaver and then on to Isolation Peak. If you want a secluded scramble and remote views (at least by Front Range standards), this fits the bill, despite being in the heart of RMNP.

Approach:

Approach as you would to Thunder Lake, turning up and to the right, follow a trail through the campsites next to the North Saint Vrain Creek. Once past the campsites, continue off trail up towards a plateau, using the creek as a guide. For the most part, the schwacking is pretty minimal (mostly just tall grassy things and a bit of deadfall). Veer to the left of the creek at the headwall and you'll pop out on a grassy plateau at 11,200'. Proceed across the plateau and follow the East Ridge that leads up towards Pilot Mountain, doing your best to avoid the clusters of shrubs. Eventually, you'll find yourself at the base of a fairly stout headwall near 12,000. From here, you can drop to the NE and circle around cliffs, or you can go straight. This trip report will describe the latter.

Route Information:

Mileage: Approximately 18 Miles
Elevation: Approximately 6000'
Class: 5.easy

Exposure: Extreme
Rockfall: Moderate (some potential for rockfall on the final slope leading up to the Continental Divide)
Route-Finding: High
Commitment: Moderate (lots of bail options - not to say they'd be pleasant, but if you need to get down in a hurry, you can)

Pilot Mountain

The approach to the East Ridge headwall is pretty straightforward - follow low-angle slabs with some fun exposure to the South until you reach an imposing headwall. Here, you have the choice of descending down and to the right to circle around the cliffs, or go straight up. The initial climbing is pretty vertical, but relents to lower-angle terrain (still steep) that will require a fair number of friction moves. Once at the top of the vertical headwall, we followed a ledge around to the right and proceeded up a combination of slabs and cracks to the summit of Pilot Mountain. I wouldn't say the slabs are 5th class, though there may be a 5th class move in there somewhere, they're just 4th class slabs that are a bit spooky considering the exposure below. Once at the summit, follow the ridge across an absolutely delightful knife edge. The initial portion of the knife edge is by far the most exposed, but relents fairly quickly on the North side of the ridge. The steep slab of granite to the South on the other hand is quite impressive. From there, scramble up intermittent grass and rock bands to the continental divide where you get to frolic most of the way to The Cleaver.

The Cleaver and Isolation Peak

Tundra plod (with annoying talus) your way over to The Cleaver. Don't ask me which bump on the ridge was the cleaver, because I couldn't tell you. Despite being a named feature, it's not particularly noteworthy (though the views to the West are quite wonderful). Once at Isolation Notch (you'll know you're there because there's a particularly imposing headwall) you can descend a grassy ledge for about 200' where you'll see (another) grassy ledge that gently ascends through a cliff face. Follow the grassy ledge through the cliff bands where you can then scramble up 3rd and 4th class terrain on a rib to the left of a prominent, West-facing gully. I marked these with waypoints, so the GPX file I recreated should be fairly accurate! Eventually merge with the gully and scramble through Class 2/3 terrain back up to the ridge. The other option is a 5.5? climb (as rated on Mountain Project for the L.A. Freeway Route) that ascends a West-facing headwall just around the corner from Isolation Notch. It was windy, cold, and it looked like we had some whether moving in, so we opted for the bypass rather than the 5.5 route.

Once you're back on the ridge, it's Class 2 talus hopping and a bit of tundra plodding up to the summit of Isolation Peak. We did have a bit of weather move in at this point to make things nice and foggy, but no precipitation thankfully. From the summit of Isolation Peak, we descending down the South Ridge before following a grassy bowl down to a small tarn. Pass around the tarn on the hikers-right side. Proceed down low-angle terrain, following a broad, grassy shelf to avoid unnecessary bushwhacking closer to Pipit Lake. Continue down a low-angle gully towards Blue Bird Lake. Eventually, we picked up some semblance of a use trail that took us around the North side of Bluebird Lake. At the outlet of Bluebird Lake, we found a crossing (of sorts) that got us back to the main trail on the South side. From there, it's a nice long hike back to the trailhead. By the time we made it to Ouzel Falls, we managed to miss all of the crowds! There is a bright side when it comes to long days in the mountains.