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Steve and I drove to Lake City and spent the night at the Alpine Moose hotel and had a few drinks at Mamy's Bithchin' Kitchen and Whiskey Bar to prepare for this hike. Te drive is pretty tame and we made it to the trailhead by 7am to find a clear sky and not too much snow at the high elevations. After a few miles we broke treeline and hiked through a herd of a few thousand sheep and one very loud 'sheepdog' and then made the boulder field. The pic to the left is a good look at Wetterhorn from the east as we gained the southeast ridge. Below that is a shot of us in the boulder field where the CFI has done a great jop creating and marking a trail. Below is another shot from the ridge, this is looking south into the San Jaun range.
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Once we started up the ridge routefinding became tougher. As always, if we had selected the easiest route all the time, it wouldnt have been too bad. We made a few spots more difficult than necesary, but nothing too dangerous at this point. To the right is a shot of myself gaining one of the notches that we needed to go through. Below is a shot of me making my way up the ridge. Once we got to the 'ships prow' which is the big jaged point to the left of the summit in the peak shot at the top of the page, there is a big flat spot and then about 100 ft of climbing straight up with plenty of exposure. The pic on the bottom right is looking back down part of what we climbed up (with no ropes). You can see that if you do slip anywhere in there its a long way down!
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Above left is a summit shot, it is a very small summit and you can see Uncompaghre (another 14er) in the background. We summited in about three and a half hours, and we stopped alot to take pictures because it was such a nice day, so this was a relatively easy hike untl the last few hundred feet. We could see Redcloud , Sunshine , Handies, and Sneffels on this clear day. Above is a shot of the road heading out as you can see all the aspen trees beginning to change color. To the left is a shot of us next to the 'short bus' that a group of hikers had used to arrive at the trailhead. Below is a great pic that Steve took looking through the aspen trees. That is Sunshine Mountain (not sunshine peak) in the background sprinkled with snow.
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