Mosquito - Tenmile Traverse post mortem

[pbakwin]

I decided to start with Weston Pass simply because it's 3000' higher than Frisco. And, frankly, because the drive home from Frisco at 8PM after doing the traverse seemed more appealing than driving from Weston Pass! That's what made the most sense to me, but I can certainly see arguments for trying it the other way around.

I've done Wheeler - Fletcher - Atlantic before. When I first started planning this traverse those sections were a concern. I found exactly 1 trip report for Fletcher - Wheeler, and the climber took like 7.5 hours! The CMC guidebook still says "We've never heard of anyone doing this." Basically, for Wheeler - Drift if you stay on the west side of the ridge it's not bad. Slow, yes, but on my scouting trip it took me 2:15 from Wheeler to Fletcher. I think the other guy stayed more on the ridge crest. On Saturday I made some errors in route finding, and it took more like around 2:40. I still haven't found a good route for Drift - Fletcher.

Fletcher - Atlantic is very gnarly if you stay on the top of the ridge. I found an easy sneak on the east side that doesn't lose too much altitude (stays well above 13K). It took me less than an hour on my scouting climb. Nevertheless, this is still probably the crux of the entire ridge. Thinking about doing that with my wobbly legs & the weather rolling in last Saturday was intimidating for sure.

[Jesse Peterson]

Wow dude. Kudos to you for this effort-- "only" traversing from Weston to Fletcher is a hell of an accomplishment. I've done the Tenmile traverse from Peak 1 to Peak 10 a few times, and was thinking of extending it to Crystal, Father Dyer, and Mt. Helen this year. But this is an entirely different order of magnitude! Walking on unstable rock for 20+ miles certainly takes it out of you, as well as the mental energy spent route-finding in the dark. Nice job getting as far as you did.

[MichiganBrian]

That sounds awesome. I may have to give that a try sometime...likely long after you complete it...if I ever happen to live in Colorado...

[pbakwin]

...I've done the Tenmile traverse from Peak 1 to Peak 10 a few times, and was thinking of extending it to Crystal, Father Dyer, and Mt. Helen this year.

Doing the entire Tenmile Range would be cool. That would take you all the way down to Clinton (or possibly McNamee.) It's funny that people call Peak 1-10 the "Tenmile Traverse" when it's really only roughly half of the range, and really the easy half... Bill Briggs came closest that I've heard of, doing Quandary to Peak 1.

[Steve Knapp]

Impressive and a nice try. I can understand the mental and physical fatigue for all those peaks.

Timely info on this thread too, heading up for the Tenmile Traverse (Mt. Royal to Peak 10) tomorrow. We'll see how far we get before the weather moves in.

[jesseskico]

I'll look for you from the Frisco library about 0630!

[jrsummit]

How'd it go? Heading out for this tomorrow.

[zinj]

I had a similar realization about this geography while just looking at maps...8 years after you.

christian349 pointed me to your post. My proposed gimmick is to make this route follow the Park/Lake county boundary which starts (almost) at the summit of Wheeler Mountain and then continue on that county line all the way down to Weston pass, where, as you point out, the altitude declines therafter. Maybe 40% (?) shorter than your proposed route. The route I'm tinkering with excludes the Atlantic-Fletcher difficulty as well as the Dragon and the scrambling between Peaks 2 and 4.

While still brutally long (I'm not a 100 miler like you), the trickiest bit appears to be in the middle: Democrat to Buckskin to Tweto. I sloppily pinned an ankle and twisted my knee amidst the shifty talus on the East face of Sheridan a few years back, but think that's totally avoidable by sticking to the vaguely defined south ridge instead of touching the east face.

[pbakwin]

Note that the following year I got to Peak 10:
http://blog.ultimatedirection.com/tag/m ... -traverse/
Then the next year Jeff Rome did the whole thing in an impressive, completely unsupported 48-hour push. Surprisingly, I haven’t heard of any attempts since.

[justiner]

On my radar, Peter wanna come?

[pbakwin]

On my radar, Peter wanna come?

Yes! I want to do this as a “Fastpack” - one night sleeping on the ridge, no nighttime travel.

[Trotter]

On my radar, Peter wanna come?

Yes! I want to do this as a “Fastpack” - one night sleeping on the ridge, no nighttime travel.

On the ridge north of mt Evans B, there are several waterproof concrete communications structures that were unlocked when I was up there last year. Nothing in them. Would make a decent bivy spot