| Peak: | Mt. Lindsey |
| Route: | Northwest Ridge |
| Range: | Sangre de Cristo |
| Posted By: | Geckser |
| Date of Info: | 3/6/2021 |
| Date Posted: | 3/7/2021 |
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It was a very nice day on Lindsey. The road is closed 5.8 miles below the normal summer trailhead. The road is very grim this time of year with variable snow coverage for the first 1.8 miles. The road becomes very bumpy and snowy after that point. Skiing the road is difficult even if the first 1.8 miles were somehow snowy as it requires a great deal of skinning on the way back (we left our skins on for the entire trip back). The basin after the trailhead is still quite snowy and the trail is not very clear, another case where skins stayed on for the descent. Once the gully is reached it is a very nice skin to around 12,600 feet where we deposited our skis above a pile of rocks. The basin section was stunningly beautiful and included some very fun moraine skiing. We brought trailrunners for this section of the climb and we were glad we had them. It was even a nice enough day for a not very painful transfer between boots and shoes. The climb to the ridge was easy and not super snowy. The northwest ridge was the route used for the remaining portion of the ascent, this section was not very snowy and actually very pleasant and fun scrambling. The crux wall is slightly snowy depending on the route chosen but you can easily avoid all snow if desired. Great views from the summit on a pretty nice day. The descent was very nice from the summit back down to the lower basin the snow was very high quality and the features of the mountain were super fun to ski. Getting from the lower basin to the car was a bit of a slog as there was never a point where it made sense to take off skins and there were many flats or uphills. Do not expect a smooth descent, at least on skis. Overall very good day. I would recommend hitting the peak asap as I doubt the trench that we generated will last very long and I doubt many other people will put in a trench before spring. As far as we could tell we were the first group up the mountain for at least a month.             
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