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Peak(s):  US Grant Peak  -  13,778 feet
"V 4"  -  13,541 feet
Vermilion Peak  -  13,909 feet
Fuller Peak  -  13,777 feet
Unnamed 13302  -  13,302 feet
Date Posted:  05/23/2012
Date Climbed:   05/19/2012
Author:  FireOnTheMountain
Additional Members:   Boggy B
 Tomata Juice and Dolla Bills   

"Did you guys go all the way up to the lake?"

Harboring a grimace from our faces we replied kindly that we had. Nice folks you come across on a beautiful day in the San Juans...

The plan this go around was to hit some peaks around Ice Lake. Frankly, I would not have bothered with a TR for this trip, but there is not much info on these peaks with snow on them. Besides, who doesn't want to look at some San Juan porn (as my fellow coworkers label my mountain obsession).

We pulled onto county road 7 20 miles south of Ouray around 11 and found ourselves awake 5 hours later hiking up. What planning we did involved Day 1, but we would soon find out our plan would have to wait another year so we headed for Grant, groggy and unsure of what would lie in store.
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Snow climb on the approach! Right branch taken

As we reached Island Lake this is the view that greeted us. I know its a little brazen to name features, especially with such an obvious line and short approach, but how about the Union Couloir just between you and I.
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The General's Union Couloir

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About to turn the right corner for the final pitch

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Final Stretch

Massive sun cupping killed the grade, however any disappointment we experienced vanished once we topped out the line. Awaiting us was an outstanding view of the Ophir Valley and a great line to the summit ridge.
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Summit of Grant ahead

From the summit of Grant we traversed the south slopes to the V4-Grant Saddle where we veered north and headed for V3.
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Our traverse off Grant

Looking up TRs for V3 (ex post facto) all the routes come up from Ophir and there is a damn good reason for this as we would find out.

The west side of the ridge and the summit pitch on the SW aspect seen below in the first pic did not look very inviting so we hopped on the other side of the ridge where we knew a SE facing couloir could lead us to the summit.
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Mike adsconding. If you look closely you can see V3's smug grin.

One problem....giant cliff bands. Denied.
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Salvation lies up the couloir, death awaits over the edge

Defeated, we grabbed "V 4" which did not entail anything really crazy and descended down to our cache way below Ice Lake and hiked back up to the Lake to spend the night there.

The next morning we headed for Vermillion and its million dollar riches.
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Gooooood Morning San Juans

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Mike attempting to communicate with our E.T. friends, Golden Horn awaking

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Vermillion Dollar Couloir...We took the steeper left branch

In all honesty, both Mike and I were not super impressed with the line after researching it, but it was actually quite enjoyable and got to mid 50s in some places. The cornice at the top can be circumnavigated easily going climber's right. Snow was continuous from Ice Lake to the top of the line.
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View up the line

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Take me to your leader - Boggster toppin out

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Pilot Knobb lookin sumptuous

Once we both got the snow climbs out of our systems, we switched gears for peak bagging mode.
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Fuller upahead

After tagging Fuller, we headed over to Beattie and then got our tomato juice on.
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View of Fuller and its rowdy neighbor from Beattie

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Ridge to V8

The ridge to V8 required lots of class 3 rock hopping, we stayed ridge proper 95% of the time.
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Heading to Fuller-Vermillion Saddle with our ridge in the background and Rolling Mtn behind that

Overall, the total ride was about 19 miles with ~6000' of vert and a pretty fun glissade. The snow is lightly freezing over night (just ask Mike whose water bottles froze outside of his bivy) making the snow really nice for climbing (minus the sup cups on Grant).
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View from our bivy spot

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Tread lightly my friends!



Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24


Comments or Questions
Boggy B
User
try 8500
5/24/2012 5:02am
feet of gain. Did it really seem that easy to you?

Nice report. Especially the technical characterization of Fuller and Co. And yes I was getting excellent signal.


d_baker
nice porn
5/24/2012 10:42am
I like this. Great area, and I'm glad you two made it to the lakes. ;)


Brian Thomas
User
Crunk Ain't Dead
5/24/2012 2:59pm
I am very much looking forward to visiting this area in 6 weeks. Thank you for posting this!


Monster5
User
Naming couloirs, huh?
5/24/2012 3:30pm
I bet you refer to yourselves in the third person, too


Boggy B
User
Hulk can't name couloirs?!?
5/24/2012 4:15pm
... HULK SMAAASSSHHHH!!!!!!!!!!


FireOnTheMountain
User
Abe Like mountains.
5/24/2012 4:20pm
Abe go high on mountains. Abe like run. Abe go on snow.


Papillon
User
'Bout time Boggy B...
5/24/2012 5:12pm
made it to the San Juan 13ers... That is a pretty sweet view from camp. Man, I can't believe I almost missed this report. It was buried halfway down the page.


wooderson
User
almost missed this too...
5/24/2012 8:48pm
...nice to discover it as I languish in my cubicle on a Thursday afternoon.

Excellent report, sweet photos. Looks like you guys had a great trip. Ice Lakes Basin sure is tough to beat... been there once and now I'd like to try it with some snow!


Boggy B
User
about time indeed!
5/24/2012 9:45pm
I've not been ignorant. Just waiting for the snow to get right.


USAKeller
User
very very cool!
5/25/2012 2:51am
Thank you for this! Nicely done. And sweet photos!


kimo
User
Sweet
5/25/2012 11:51pm
Frankly wouldn't have bothered? Dude! Glad you did the write up. That's some sweet terrain and a reminder that I need to expand my horizons some this summer.

You and Mike have been on a roll. Enjoyed the Ypsilon write up and video too. Well done guys.



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