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Peak(s):  Mt. Shavano  -  14,230 feet
Tabeguache Peak  -  14,158 feet
Mt. Antero  -  14,271 feet
Mt. Princeton  -  14,200 feet
Date Posted:  06/05/2015
Date Climbed:   05/31/2015
Author:  andrewhamilton
Additional Members:   andreasansone
 Shavano, Tabeguache, Antero, and Princeton   


Trip Report May 31-June1 Shavano, Tabeguache, Antero, and Princeton



With everything covered in so much late season snow Andrea and I did not really know where to go. Originally we had planned to go climb in the Elks for a few days, but we were scared off by all the snow. So instead we decided to go check out part of the Nolan's course in the southern Sawatch. We came up with a plan to see how far we could make it in 30 hours, hiking through the night with no sleep, just like we would if we were attempting Nolan's, something we are thinking about trying in September. We knew the quantity of snow would be a challenge, but we thought it was certainly within our capability to climb Shavano, Tabeguache, Antero, Princeton, and Yale.

We had a friend in Buena Vista who had wanted to help us out, however he desperately tried to convince us to change our plans. He had hiked up Yale with a group from the 14er spring gathering on May 30th, and his group had triggered avalanches and in general deemed the conditions to be extremely dangerous. We had the impression that he had no desire to help us out any longer so we decided that rather than counting on support we would just put some food and drinks at the base of the Baldwin Gulch road so we could resupply after the first 3 peaks.

Despite our decision to continue the adventure, we were now extremely wary that the conditions would be dangerous and we promised each other we would be very conservative. We didn't know exactly where we would finish, so we were thankful when Clinton, a member of Chaffee County SAR, offered to pick us up wherever we finished.

We drove to the Shavano trailhead in the night on Saturday, May 30th and slept for a few hours at the trailhead. Originally we had thought to start by 3:00am but that sounded like a horrible idea so we decided to just wake up at 3:00am. All too early the alarm sounded. We packed up lots of warm gear, fearing a cold night and strong winds on the ridges, and packed up lots of snow gear, like ice axes, crampons, microspikes, snowshoes, and even a new experimental glissading sled. Pretty soon I was out of room in my pack, and my biggest decision was which pair of snowshoes to take. Either the lightweight racing snowshoes or the Verts, snowshoes specifically designed for steep couloirs and more technical terrain. I had never used the Verts before so I decided to give them a try.


Shavano


We started at 4:11 am, and were the first people headed out of the trailhead that morning. We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't really hit much snow until about 11,000 feet. This was also approximately when we left the main trail and headed left up the drainage for the Angel of Shavano. The snow was still firm and we did not need to put on Snowshoes, instead just opting for microspikes. While in the trees we heard a large rock slide to our right, and we were actually relieved when we realized it was a rockslide because if it had been an avalanche already then we would have been pretty nervous. Once out of the trees we found a nice snowboard track to walk up towards the Angel of Shavano. As we neared the steep part of the Angel we did notice the remains of some small avalanches on the south side, but nothing seemed too threatening. The snow was still firm so our trepidation due to all the avalanche warnings seemed to ease. At about 12,800 we angled to the north and headed straight towards the summit, which we reached at about 7:45 am. There was a light breeze which made it a little chilly so we put on our down jackets on the summit.
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Sunrise
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Angel of Shavano
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Shavano Summit
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Shavano Summit



Tabeguache


We snapped a few pictures and then followed the ridge towards Tabeguache. The ridge was mostly snow covered and the snow was firm so the walk to Tabeguache was quite pleasant. The final climb from the saddle to the summit of Tabeguache was pleasantly protected from the wind and the snow was now perfectly soft for glissading, and we were anticipating a quick descent towards Antero. The big question was which route we would take from Tabeguache to Antero. The first option was to take a more direct route toward Antero via a steep Avalanche Chute, and the second option was to follow the west ridge of Tabegauche towards the saddle with Carbonate Mountain. The second option is a more roundabout way to get to Antero, although allows you to drop less elevation and hopefully avoid a sea of willows, probably not too pleasant in the snowy conditions.

We arrived on the summit of Tabeguache at 8:30 am and decided to go with option 2. The west ridge of Tabeguache was quite pleasant with a few easily avoidable cornices, but also with a couple of spots that required us to scramble. The wind was definitely blowing hard in our faces as we ascended the last little highpoint before dropping towards the saddle with Carbonate Mountain. Here we found a beautiful looking slope of snow heading straight down into the valley below. However the snow was a little hard still so we were a little intimidated about starting the glissade. I finally decided to stop and get out my new glissading sled, but it took me awhile to get set up and meanwhile Andrea had continued down the mountain and seemed so far ahead that it almost seemed pointless to go to the trouble of pulling out the sled.

When I was finally in position I carefully started sliding down the slope. The snow was hard but soft enough that I could break the crust with the shaft of my ax, but it took a fair amount of strength to maintain control. It didn't take long to go flying past Andrea and I felt good about going to the trouble of getting out the sled. As I gained speed I looked down and was horrified to see that I had somehow put the sharp tip of my ice ax right through my down jacket, but I was moving so fast I didn't have time to think about it. Then I hit the steep part of the descent and my feet were kicking up so much snow that I was completely blinded so I pulled up my feet and let myself gain maximum speed. The snow softened quickly as I lost elevation and sooner than desired I came to a stop around 12,000 feet. So I had dropped about 1000 feet in just a few minutes, and was satisfied with a big grin.

The snow was soft enough that while I waited for Andrea I pulled out my snowshoes. She was stuck up on the steep part of the descent but I wasn't worried because there was nothing dangerous in the run out so even if she lost control of her descent she would be fine. She did not have a sled like I had but instead had a glissading "diaper" made out of a trash bag and duct tape.

My first experience with the Verts was not pleasant. I guess one of the reasons they are called Verts is because they like to go uphill. However, my first step was downhill and the front end nosedived straight into the soft snow. Yikes! I was going to have to be careful.

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Tabegauche West Ridge
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Looking East on West Ridge of Tabeguache
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Descending Tabeguache
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Descending Tabegauche



Antero


Soon Andrea had her snowshoes on and we began the long trek toward Antero. We basically followed a route I had used last year while doing the Nolan's course, which allowed us to stay above most of the troublesome willows. The only problem was that the snow was very soft and even with the snowshoes we were basically postholing the entire way. Around 10:30 we joined up with a jeep road and I decided to try out an idea I had come up with because of all the snow...snowcones! I pulled out a special collapsible cup and some pina colada syrup and made myself a tasty snowcone! I was pretty happy with the taste although the ice crystals were a little big and crunchy.

We followed the jeep road but the postholing was getting a little old. The very edge of the jeep road had melted out so for a short distance we removed our snowshoes and walked along the thin melted out edge of the road. I was definitely feeling grumpy and tired already which was extremely frustrating because we were only 7 hours into our adventure. So to try to perk myself up I drank a 5 hour energy and at Andrea's behest starting listening to some music. Soon the little ribbon of rock we were following disappeared into the snow and we had to put our snowshoes back on. We trudged across another long flat area and rather than looking for the road that winds up towards Antero we headed straight up the snow towards the 13,750 subpeak to the south of Antero. Finally I discovered the usefulness of the Verts snowshoes as they excel in climbing steep snow.

The somewhat tricky south ridge of Antero was completely covered in snow but was pretty easy to bypass with our snowshoes on and we made excellent time up the final pitch and summited Antero at 1:15 pm. The Tabeguache to Antero traverse had taken 4:45 which was slower than we would have liked given that in summer conditions it only takes me about 3 hours. However given the conditions we were feeling fine about our pace.

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Looking at Tabeguache to Antero Terrain.
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Ascending Antero
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Looking at Princeton from Antero
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South ridge of Antero


We didn't stay long on the summit, and after going back and forth about how to descend Antero, we decided to follow the Nolan's route I had used in September and head northwest off the summit towards Baldwin Gulch road. We plunge stepped a few hundred feet before just sitting down and glissading for about 1000 feet. Despite still being on a steep slope the snow was just too soft to continue sliding, and even after putting on snowshoes going down was difficult because the soft, slushy snow was providing no flotation for the snowshoes. With the Verts on I had to walk backwards for some time to prevent the front of the shoes from nose diving into the snow.

We descended down a ridge that when dry had been a very pleasant descent, but in the snow was extremely slow going because of the deep slushy snow. Andrea was having difficulty and in order to speed our descent I decided to drop into a gully to our north because it looked like we could make a quicker descent and finally get out of the snow. It was steep and I was wary of the snow, but I didn't see any signs of avalanches in the gully so it seemed safe enough. I was contouring my way down into the gully at an angle when I heard Andrea make a loud noise behind me. I turned around and was surprised to see that she had started an Avalanche. I was a little annoyed because I was supposed to be the guinea pig and stay up front, how had she started the slide from behind me?

As she started going down with the slide I yelled "Roll!, Roll!", and although she doesn't remember hearing me, her instinct kicked in and she rolled right out of the slide. We both just watch the snow gain momentum and head into the gully below, carrying off her poles which she had let go of during her roll.

For a few moments she tried to tell me that she was a little freaked out, but I assured her that she did us a favor by clearing out the unstable snow, and then I proceeded to glissade down the path of the avalanche, which was now clear of the unstable snow. It was nice to see that the slide was not particularly dangerous as it wasn't very large and didn't even bury her poles, but I was annoyed with myself that I had led her onto a dangerous slope.

In any case we recovered her poles and bushwhacked out to the Baldwin Gulch road, and at 10,800 feet crossed the river and sat down to take a break, eat some food and try to dry out our soaked feet.

We stayed out in the sun for about an hour, drank lots of water, and tried to wring all the water out of our socks. We lamented not leaving dry socks at our resupply at the bottom of Baldwin Gulch and were both a little afraid of having numb feet during the night on Princeton. It is a little annoying that with all that postholing our shoes got so wet, and being waterproof they are nearly impossible to dry out.

Around 4:45 pm we headed down the road and arrived at our resupply box. (We were happy bears had not discovered it and made a quick end of it) We stuffed down a large Qdoba burrito, protein shake, tortilla chips, and drank gatorade and purified water for the long trek up Mt. Princeton.


Princeton


At 5:15 pm we started heading toward Princeton. After the slide Andrea triggered coming off Antero we were both a little nervous about heading up Princeton, because the snow up there was still baking in the sun. However, it looked like we might be able to gain a small ridge and be able to ascend the slushy snow without being on a treacherous slope, so we had some hope.

We found the trail heading to Grouse Gulch out of the cemetery in Alpine, and began the long ascending traverse up the slopes. The trail is nice all the way to about 11,000 feet, but then we had to leave the trail and follow a small creek. Eventually I just took a guess and we left the creek and we headed East and bushwhacked through soft snow and thick pines and aspens until we reached the small ridge that we wanted to use to ascend to the southwest ridge of Princeton. It was nearing darkness, and we were both feeling pretty tired. I told Andrea that it would probably be a good time to take a 5 hour energy since the next several hours would be pretty critical, especially in the darkness. But I had no idea what an epic adventure truly awaited us.

The 5 hour energy shots did their job and soon Andrea was talking a lot again. Despite the soft snow we never felt in danger of another slide all the way to the southwest ridge, which we reached at 9:00pm, just as darkness was settling in. At the ridge we put on our headlamps and were optimistic that we could reach the summit by 10:30 pm, and be down by 2:00 am, well ahead of my pessimistic estimate of spending the entire night on Princeton, which I often call the "beast" of the Nolan's route.

Reality soon set in as before long we came to our first obstacle: an icy knife edged corniced ridge top. Going down to the left was not an option as it was a vertical drop, and in the dark the snowslope on the right looked vertical and we could sense the dropoff of thousands of feet. I took a few nervous steps across the top of the ridge and decided I did not like it so I carefully turned around and we came up with plan B. We took one picture of this spot in the dark and unfortunately didn't take any more pictures during the night.

It was time for Andrea to put on her crampons. I did not have crampons and instead put on the Verts. We put away our poles and pulled out our ice axes, then carefully traversed just below the top of the ice ridge. It was here that I realized how corniced the ridge was as I looked over the edge into what seemed like a bottomless drop on the west side. Step by step we carefully made our way across the section, and in my mind we had just passed a point of no return. We simply were not going to retreat no matter what was up ahead of us.

Soon though we reached another difficult section. In the summer you have the option of dropping to the east on easier terrain to avoid the actual ridge. However in these conditions, especially in the night that just did not seem like an option. So we removed our crampons and ascended the steep, rock and icy ridge. In good conditions it would probably be rated class 3 but in these conditions it seemed extremely dangerous and it was a relief to get past the section.

It was around this time that Andrea told me she had been dealing with a knee issue that she believed was caused by all of the postholing we had been doing all day, and it was hurting her every time she lifted her knee up. Unfortunately there was not much we could do but continue on and get up and over the summit. Fortunately she excels at suffering, so I had no doubts about her ability to continue. The ridge continued in spectacular fashion with huge cornices that were eerie in the light of the moon. We ascended a couple of extremely frustrating false summits before finally reaching the summit at 12:15 am.

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Ascending Princeton
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Sun beginning to set on Princeton
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Picture does no justice...each hump is corniced on left side.



The Descent


We were able to get out of the wind on the summit so we took a short break on the summit. Originally we had planned to follow the Nolan's route into Maxwell gulch. However, given Andrea's injury we decided to go down the standard Princeton route, and depending on how she was feeling we would either quit at Frontier Ranch or take the Colorado trail to the Avalanche Trailhead for Yale.

We started down the ridge and snow was still quite firm. In fact our microspikes almost did not provide enough traction and I felt like I might slip and start sliding down. Soon though I started breaking through the crust and I began a long endless night of postholing. It was warm enough that the snow would never truly firm up throughout the night. It was the worst kind of postholing as you would break through a crust and then continue on until about mid shin level, and it was unavoidable. Every single step was the same. We made our way to the lowpoint on the ridge between Princeton and Tigger peak. The smart move in hindsight would have been to follow the ridge to Tigger peak and from there descend to the road. However, I just wanted to follow the one set of footprints we had found because I was certain they would more or less follow the standard route down and out towards the road. There were also a couple of faint skier's tracks. I was very annoyed with whoever left the tracks because they were taking huge steps which were impossible to follow, and I was trying to follow them because if you stepped in them just right it might save the one step from breaking through the crust. Eventually I gave up and decided to put on the Verts, despite the problem that the rest of the night we would spend going downhill. Andrea thought it would be easier to leave on her microspikes and I was happy to see that it seemed to help her out to be able to follow in the tracks left by the Verts. However I could not travel downhill facing forward because of the Verts tendency to nosedive, so I turned around and went backwards, using my hands to balance myself by putting them on the ground in front of me. So I continued to follow the one set of footprints, thinking they would lead us to our destination.

What I did not know at the time was that those footsteps were left by a person who eventually had to call for search and rescue.

Eventually we reached the path of a large avalanche, and I lost the footprints. I could see where we were trying to head to in the moonlight off in the distance, but there were several rocky ribs in the way and it was not clear how to reach our destination. The snow near the rocks was extremely slushy and did not even have a crust, and I was acutely aware of the possibility of starting another slide. We gave up on the footprints and traversed across the path of the slide, which was as hard as concrete. It was hard to kick steps in it for Andrea. We slowly made it across and then continued our path of contouring, then dropping down, then contouring, then dropping down. After a frustrating amount of time we just decided to follow some skier tracks. We knew we had descended too far, but we also figured the skiers must have skied out to the road, and we saw that several faint ski tracks were in the area so it seemed like a good guess.

Next began a frustratingly long traverse at about 11,200 feet as the skiers traversed a couple of small ridges to get back to the road. One of the skiers had descended at a particularly bad time and we could see that the skier had triggered several small slab avalanches as they had skied out. At this point we were both extremely frustrated and all we wanted to do was "get off the damn mountain". But the path dragged on and on until we finally reached the road just as dawn was approaching. I was especially disappointed that the road was still covered in snow and that we had to descend all the way down to about 10,800 feet near the radio towers to finally get out of the snow.

At the first dry spot we decided to lay down and sleep for a couple of hours and we huddled together to try to stay warm. Despite shivering and being cold the sun soon came up and warmed us up, and we were able to make contact with Clinton to come pick us up at the Frontier Ranch Trailhead, thus concluding our adventure slightly early, but with thorough, thorough respect for Mt. Princeton, the beast of Nolan's!

The Bear

Upon arriving back at the Shavano Trailhead we were surprised to see our cooler and a bunch of random things strewn about the ground beside my van. Then we saw that in the night a bear had ripped off the side window, climbed inside the van and had a smorgasbord eating all of our food and drinking an entire bottle of margarita. Fortunately the drunk bear did not do any damage to our gear. However I was surprised to see muddy bear prints all over the door handles so my advice is to lock your vehicle and leave a small picnic inside your car so the bears can leave satisfied and drunk and not rip your interior to shreds.
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Window Repairs.



Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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Comments or Questions
climbnowworklater
User
Dang.
6/5/2015 6:44am
More bear activity. Between the unusual snow amounts, the moose thread, and all this bear activity...this season is starting out rough.


BiochemMichael
Zeh Beast
6/5/2015 11:04am
Well done guys. This is a pretty awesome story. I am glad you guys got out safely, despite all the avy concern and triggering. It seems like a poor ending to all this snow – just getting so slushy and sliding out without being able to properly be hiked. Too bad it didn’t come a month earlier.


SnowAlien
User
I am so bummed
6/5/2015 2:47pm
we missed your intrepid duo on Antero We were expecting to see a group from 14er gathering, but didn’t see a soul. Our group of 3 summitted soon after 9am, but since the snow on the western aspect was still frozen for skiing, we hanged out on the summit for 2 hours. I wish we could’ve stayed longer and cheered you on! Snow was getting a bit mushy by 11.30–noon at 12k and below. Scary to read about all the slides that’s been happening! Princeton sounds scary. We saw lots of cornices there when we skied it a month ago.

p.s. You guys are awesome! Keep plugging along, hope Andrea’s knee heals quickly.


andrewhamilton
User
Sorry we missed you!
6/6/2015 8:11pm
We definitely saw your tracks up there! It would have been nice to see somebody, but I guess it was running a little late up there by the time we arrived. Andrea developed tendonitis it sounds like it won’t take too long to heal.



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