Jonathan Neufeld Outdoor adventure photography and mountain life

Planned: Sunshine
Actual: Rain

Planned: Camping at Lake Como (~12,000ft)
Actual: Camping at Lake Como (~12,000ft)

Planned: Staying dry while camping
Actual: Getting really, really wet while camping

Planned: Getting up at 4am to climb Little Bear, Ellingwood and Blanca
Actual: Waking up at 4am to rain/hail/sleet and going back to bed

Planned: 2 days of camping and climbing
Actual: Packing up in the rain and going home early

Overall it was a bit of a … rough weekend. Lots of rain and lots of weather to get in the way. We drove up the 4wd road as far as we could go, met up with Keith and Brian (some acquaintances of Jamie’s) and camped at the lake. By the time we go there though everything was soaked and the peaks were obscured by clouds. Since the forecast was for 50% chance of showers and it hadn’t frozen over night the combination of unstable snow and morale-crushing weather played pretty heavily into the pack-up-early decision. All in all I’m still glad we got out, got 1000m of elevation gain and spent the night at 12,000ft but it was a little frustrating to not get any summits.

Monday was spent mostly in Georgetown, there is a big fundraiser coming up for Alpine Rescue and we were out soliciting donations for the silent auction. We came a way a lot better than I anticipated, 6 immediate donations and a lot sincere “come back later”‘s from folks.

Now I’m looking forward to my quick trip back to Calgary this weekend. I’m heading out Wednesday night and will be there until Sunday night (c: Definitely can’t wait!

Spring in Colorado, I’m told, means snow climbing season and we headed out this weekend to hit up Mt. Hope and the Hopeful Couloir. We’d been out rock climbing the day before in Clear Creek and decided to just head straight to the trailhead from there, since we were anticipating a 5am start it seemed a lot better than trying to drive there in morning.

Jamie with Colorado 13ers for some light reading

Yup, those are Thermarests in the back of the truck, don’t worry, they’re on top of housing insulation so it was nice and warm (c: What? There’s really no point in pitching a tent if you’re getting up at 4am is there?

We were indeed up at 4am and after some last minute pack-checks and thick oatmeal for breakfast we were on the trail by 5am. Roughly 5:13 am I realized that my sunglasses were still in the truck, even though we were well into headlamp territory still, and I dashed back for them.

The approach was steep with almost no pre-amble; just wham heading up the trail. We made good time though and before long the sun was starting to show through and things were warming up. Mt. Hope is a picaresque peak on Hwy 24, south of Leadville, it’s considered one of the “Centennial Peaks” (the highest 100 in the state) at an elevation of 13,933 ft (4,246 m). The Hopeful Couloir is a NE facing snow climb that gains roughly 1,200 ft of elevation and averages 36deg slope which gets steeper as you get closer to the top.

Mt Hope with the Hopeful Couloir just left of the summit ridge (Pic from Summit Post)