I’ve more or less stopped listening to music for those long, winter approaches when the lower gates are closed (save for The Grateful Dead). Instead, I’ve found that podcasts tend to whistle away the hours almost unperceivably. My mind is just too distracted to note the passage of yet, ‘another section’ of road. On this cold September, going on December morning, I was able to burn through some episodes of the 1949 St. Louis exorcism (of which William Peter Blatty’s book, ‘The Exorcist’ is based off), Planet Money & Lore. Before I knew it, I was at Wrights Lake and the Sneffels Trailhead. It was just past dawn; I was making great time.

I didn’t do any research on Gilpin Peak. I figured, wrongly, from the many times I’ve been to Blue Lakes Pass, one simply follows the ridge south to Gilpin’s northern flanks followed by an easy scramble to the summit ridge. Easy peasy, right? Well, it wasn’t.

Once I left the pass, I made it .2 mile across this ‘flat ridge’ climbing over some surprisingly and wholly unexpected steep spires. I got stopped by a large middle-finger of rock seemingly giving me the ‘bird.’ Both sides of the ridge held steep, calcified smooth snow. I leaned forward over the tip balancing on my hands, feet slightly in the air to get a better look around the fingernail of rock. I was shocked. I could see easier terrain about 30’ ahead but getting there wasn’t. I rocked back down onto my feet, looked downward to the west side and descended about 15’ on exposed nubs of rock. I took four steps out onto the snow, silently cursed and promptly backtracked. Just getting my axe planted took a couple punches and my feet weren’t purchasing at all. I had flashbacks of my slide/fall on American Peak the prior spring and didn’t feel like revisiting that lesson. I retraced back to the pass and sat down, grumbling.

I didn’t have crampons. I didn’t bring them because honestly, I didn’t think I would need them. I had a hunch that any snow I might have come across, would be bulletproof. That was confirmed earlier in the morning as I crossed hardened tracts of snow like shingles patches. The streams, frozen mercurial veins of silver were astonishingly still running. Even despite the snow conditions, I figured I’d be able to skirt anything that looked devious along the upper ridge.

Keep in mind, I ended up scrambling Mt. Sneffels the day before the last big storm. Conditions now are of course, radically different. The skies above were still calm and blue. There was no way in hell I was going to trek 6.5 miles up here just to turn around and walk back down. I looked over at Sneffels and noticed the SW Ridge was like, 95% snow-free. Again, I expected it to be dryer than Gilpin’s north facing route, but I didn’t expect it to be in [early] fall conditions. I wanted to write a report on Gilpin Peak, not Sneffels. So this report serves mostly to relate distances to anyone venturing into Yankee Boy this winter. I hope it helps!

I shouldered my pack, cinched my straps and started up towards Sneffels. This was my third time doing the route. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘Gilpin might not be in the cards today, but there’s always Plan-B.’