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My cousin Jeff and his friend Colby came from Michigan to CO to visit Matt, (Jeff's brother) they wanted to claim some summits, not caring if they were 14ers we decided on the French group. Matt Jeff and Colby climbed Bierstadt on Monday, Jesse and I (jesse as well) met them in Georgetown and we piled into my Santa Fe bound for the Sawach range.
The FS110 FS103A turnoff is marked as 110J and a ribbon tied around a tree to the left of the road. This turnoff is after the Mt Massive Trailhead and quickly leads to Halfmoon Creek.
The four passengers got out and my stock 2004 Santa Fe forded the creek with ease. The 4x4 road immediately got very rough and they all had to walk the road and were nice enough to toss rocks and act as effective spotters. I got almost the entire way to where S Halfmoon Creek had washed the road out at 10800ft, but not without scraping at least 7 rocks. I took the Santa Fe a few years ago to the old 4x4 S. Colony Lake Trailhead, this 1 mile 4x4 road was the same condition and difficulty.
We set up camp just below the washed out bridge (a very nice site is about 1/2 up the road beyond the creek crossing) had a glorious dinner and were in tents by 10:15.
Jeff woke me up at 3:40, we packed the car ate and were crossing the Creek at 4:30. The 3.1 miles up to the "Iron Mike" mine were easily hiked on the excellent road.
Taken just below the mine this shot turned out great all on its own.
We decided to climb Casco Pk first to be able to ascend the 2+ ridge to Frasco Benchmark.
A few sunrise picture and we were off to gain the ridge somewhere east of Casco Pk.
You could go all the way to the saddle but we opted for the more direct route strait to Casco's summit.
If we had gained the ridge I would have missed out on this completely unnecessary excellent class 4 summit pitch.
Colby and I summited at 7:30
After a very long (50 min) break we turned our sights on to the Casco Pk Frasco Benchmark ridge.
I enjoy training for class 3-4-5 mountaineering so we picked the direct ridge descent. There are multiple ways to move down to the saddle we opted for the direct fun downclimb.
After the initial head wall the terrain lessened to easy class 2. The views from these peaks are amazing with so many big mountains all around we admired every Elk peak from a distance on this traverse.
Down to the "Fiascol" saddle in no time we started the ridge to Frasco Benchmark.
Gerry Roach rates this ridge as 2+ some people have put it at class 3 I'd say with careful route finding (or walking far down around the towers) it is class 2. But if you stay on the ridge direct it was a bunch of short fun scrambles.
The hardest part was the climb here.
The other side of the tower they are on was the hardest, the downclimb from the tower is easier than it looks.
We gained the rest of the ridge and I climbed over to "West Frasco" for a good shot of them on Frasco Benchmark and French Mtn
Summited Frasco BM at 9:30 at 10:00 we took the group pic and headed over to French Mtn.
To the west the drop was nicely exposed, the traverse to French Mtn was simple yet fun.
We retraced to the saddle and dropped quickly back down to the Iron Mike mine. The scree and sand provided us with soft steps down and at this point we were all glad we didn't have to climb up it. I highly recommend if you are going to climb all three peaks to do it the way we did. Gaining the Casco ridge was simple and there are many options to do so, climbing up to Frasco BM would be much easier than trying to descend off of it. Also trying to climb up to the French Mtn Frasco BM saddle would leave most frustrated and disheartened.
We got back to camp at 1:30, ate brats and prepared for the henious (for my small SUV) drive down to FS110. With more help spotting and by being extra careful I managed to not scrape any rocks on the way down. I won't ever take it on that road again, bring your bigger 4x4s on that road.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
You didn't happen to take a gander down Frasco BM's NW ridge when you were on the west summit did you? Even better would be a picture looking down that NW ridge. I'm doing a traverse of a bunch of 13ers around North Fork Lake Creek this wknd and I am looking at ascending that NW ridge instead of coming up the ”Fiascol”.
This is a fun loop. For those who don't want to drive through the creek, there's a log for easy crossing. I agree with you: while it could go as easy class 2, there are plenty of extra credit scrambling options and why leave the ridge?
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