July 12th - Lone Mountain Ascent

I have always wanted to climb to the summit of Lone Mountain in the summer. At an elevation of 11,166 feet it is one of the highest mountains around. Since I had a late start, I decided to take the gondola up and get a head start. The trail from here is a relatively short 2.8 miles round trip. The kicker is that you ascend more than 2,000 feet in a mere 1.4 miles. Translation: This is a very STEEP trail!

View of Lone Peak Triple Bowl and Summit

I ate my lunch on the gondola ride up and marveled at how different the mountain looks in the summer. Nearly everything above the top of this lift is rocks, rocks, and more rocks. And so the difficult climb began. Actually, the climb itself was just fine and since I am fairly used to the elevation now I did not have any problem with the altitude or the steepness of the ascent.

BUT, and it is a big but, this was one of the most difficult trails I have ever walked on. There was some semblance of a path to follow but their were confusing choices here and there because the trail was nearly entirely on unstable scree with cobbles of varying sizes. The other factor that made this trail intense is the serious exposure it has (or as the map says "extreme exposure"). Loosely translated, that means you'd better be careful about your footing on that knife edge or you could take a long and absurdly painful tumble down steep faces with sharp rocks. Now, as long as you are careful it really is just fine but I was concentrating very hard at times to make sure my footing was stable before pushing off.

To be honest, this difficulty and required concentration made this a very enjoyable climb. The trail followed the ridge line south of the Lone Peak Triple bowl and then directly up the steepest ridge line near the ski trail Marx.

Alpine wildflowers were nice again and the silky phacelia shown below was a new one for me on this trip. I have a few more flowers that I need Jim to help me identify (again, not in my guidebook apparently).

Silky Phacelia

In this photograph, the trail follows the ridge line on the left along to the ridge line nearly in the center of the picture all the way up to the summit. You can see what I mean about the exposure! As you can see, there were still a few patches of snow on the upper portions of the bowl.

Ridge Line Trail to the Summit

In the lower right corner of the photo below, you can make out a faint trace of the trail. The route to the summit follows various switchbacks through the scree generally along the ridge line on the right. If you enlarge this photograph by clicking on it, you may be able to see two hikers (white shirts) about 3/4 of the way up (right ridge). This gives you at least some idea of scale. If you cannot see the hikers, well that gives you an idea of the scale too!

Lone Mountain Summit

You can see the trail best in the picture below. This shot was taken from the ridge line just below the summit. The building on the left of the picture is the end terminal for the gondola where my ascent began.

Summit Climb

I made it to the top in about 1.5 hours, taking my time and stopping often to enjoy the stupendous views.