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I've wanted to climb Peak One and Tenmile Peak (Peak Two) for a while. Like many of us, I spend a decent amount of time on I-70 and these two peaks are wonderful distractions (when in the passenger seat, of course). I always thought they were 13ers, but it turns out they are merely 12ers.
I started at the Town of Frisco parking lot near the freeway (2nd exit if headed west) at 6:15am. I'm not sure what this trailhead is called - it doesn't seem to be named. It's on the SW corner of the intersection near the highway.
From there the hiking to the Mt Royal TH is flat. I took the Mt Royal trail for about a mile as it started to climb into the forest. Along the way I passed a couple trails that seemed to be headed downhill. The only real decision to be made is about a mile after the Mt Royal TH. There the trail splits - to the left is Peak One and to the right is Mt Royal. I consulted my map and it showed the split, so I headed up the less packed down trail to the left. I used snowshoes from this point until treeline.
After about another ½ mile, whoever was kind enough to break trail for me stopped and turned around. However, at this point the route was obvious: follow the ridge to the highest point in the area. Of course that was easier said than done. I broke trail up to my mid-thigh for about ¼ mile. After that it was on and off post-holing and wading until treeline (about 3 miles total from TH to treeline). The route isn't too steep, but some short sections were very difficult with the powdery snow.
Nearing treeline - despite what the trees are telling you, there was no wind on this day
A nice view of Mt Victoria (bump on left) and Peak One.
Once I reached treeline I felt like I had put the hard part behind me. I'm not sure why I thought that, but I did. The remaining climb wasn't as physically demanding as it was mentally demanding. It was pretty tedious as the loose rocks were covered with a dusting of snow and it seemed I had to carefully place each footstep. This was punctuated with some more postholing/wading.
Rock and snow
Near the summit I chose to make some class three moves to avoid a looser section. That was unexpected and I really enjoyed holding on in my mittens!
I made my way to the empty summit by 10:15 (4 hours for around 4 miles). Having not done a winter summit before, this was actually pretty anti-climactic. So I took some photos and started heading back to treeline where I figured I'd take a proper break.
Traverse to Tenmile Peak (Peak Two) - not today
Dubsho3000
Empty summit
One note - I should have stashed my snowshoes and poles at treeline, and just gone on with my ax. They got in the way near the top and were just extra weight.
Something in the Gores
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Nice summit - oops on my rating!!!! 1/19/2010 7:28am
I accidentally gave a 3-star rating when I meant to give a 5, sorry But way to go on the ridge-trail less traveled, and persevering through the non-perfect weather. I wanted to join but just had too much school stuff on my hands this weekend. If you‘ve got any other northern 14ers (esp Lincoln) or 13ers you want to go tag, give me a PM. I miss livin in that awesome county and will take any excuse to get back there!!
Great job! Sounds (and looks) like it was a fun day! I love the pic looking toward Peak 2 - and I thought it looked imposing on a clear August day? I still want to get out (in summer) and do the traverse from Peaks 1 - 4. Congrats on a great climb!
AlexMack - I‘m not sure if I‘ll be doing many more climbs this winter, but I will definitely be out there in the spring and summer. And I definitely want to do more of the Tenmile traverse.
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But way to go on the ridge-trail less traveled, and persevering through the non-perfect weather. I wanted to join but just had too much school stuff on my hands this weekend. If you‘ve got any other northern 14ers (esp Lincoln) or 13ers you want to go tag, give me a PM. I miss livin in that awesome county and will take any excuse to get back there!!
