The first rays of light break the grasp of darkness and night,
Colors come alive as the warm morning sun creeps out of its temporary coma,
Like a flip of a switch, night turns into day and life suddenly moves again,
The sun peaks over the distant eastern sky as the moon slips behind the distant western horizon.
Red Peak flanks the southern border of the Gore Range at 13,189’. Red Peak and Buffalo Mountain are the first peaks thousands of travelers see when they come out of the Eisenhower Tunnel heading westbound on I-70. Red Peak is massive and has just about everything when it comes to terrain.
Big rolling snowfields on its eastern face, large striated pinnacles piercing the skyline on its southern end, and steep snow-filled couloirs dumping into the north willow creek drainage.
There are two summits to Red Peak, with the west summit being the true summit. The approach to Red Peak is very typical of your usual Gore Range experience. Rough, rugged, dense, and lot’s of bushwhacking. Although it’s not as difficult as some of the more remote Gore summits, it’s definitely no walk in the park. Much like the rest of the Gore, there’s no defined trail to the summit of Red Peak. The Gore Trail winds up into the South Willow Creek drainage, but quickly becomes faint and pretty much non-existent. The best tools one could take on a Gore trip would be a GPS and lots of patience. No trip to the Gore would be complete without a bunch of tree branches stuck in your jacket hood or several scrapes on your forearms from busting through dense brush. There’s nothing straightforward when it comes to climbing a peak in the gore. The Gore is for those seeking adventure and exploration.
The past week has brought unseasonably warm temperatures and very little moisture to the Colorado mountains. Luckily most locations above 10K got a decent freeze at night, so skiing some high peaks weren’t out of the question. The name of the game this week is EARLY. Get up early, get down early.
I picked up SheRa in Dillon and then we met GeoMatt at the Buffalo Cabin trailhead in Silverthorne. At 4:30 AM, the temperature at the trailhead was 28 degrees under a clear sky. We hiked up the trail about a ¼ mile before running into snow. Shortly after we were skinning through the dense forest up the Gore Trail. We made good time skinning over a solid and smooth crust layer along the eastern flanks of Buffalo Mountain. This mountain is known for its gargantuan slide paths coming down on all aspects. We crossed several as we circled around the mountain. Most of these are 30-50 year paths that ran a few thousand feet and spread to about 100 yards across. Impressive to say the least.
We reached the base of the Silver Couloir sometime around sunrise. Many tracks filled the couloir and it looked to be in good shape from top to bottom. Once past the Silver couloir the trail disappeared and we were left with a fun bushwhack up the South Willow Creek drainage to the base of Red Peak.
Along the way we passed some cool looking waterfalls and had to negotiate a couple of river crossings.
A bit of winter mixed with spring:
I love the start of spring, as the snow melts and the scent of the trees and earth fills the air. In another month we’ll see wildflowers starting to bloom and the start of summer. We continued to skin up the drainage until we reached the entrance to the SE basin of Red Peak. The basin is characterized as a large slide path that runs full length from the summit down to the drainage. A good 2,600’. We began to switchback up the slide path and into the basin at a good clip. The snow was still smooth and firm as we cruised up the slope. When we reached the upper basin the large pinnacles separating the east summit from the west summit came into view.
There are ski lines within these jagged rock formations, but it looked super bumpy and ravaged from the recent wet slide activity. We decided to stick with our original route and go for the south facing slopes off the summit.
The rest of the climb was fairly easy and painless. The morning heated up rather quickly and the snow began it’s transformation from a rock solid slab to perfect spring corn. I reached the summit sometime around 9:45AM to a bluebird sky and no wind.
Thorne Peak and Willow Peak to the north:
It was yet another perfect day to hang out on top of a summit.
SheRa and GeoMatt skinning up the final pitch:
SheRa and GeoMatt were still on the lower ridge and topped out around 10:00AM.
SheRa on the final climb with Summit County and Lake Dillon in the distance:
We admired the views of the surrounding mountains and ate some breakfast before making our way down.
"I want it all!!":
View of Holy Cross:
GeoMatt nearing the summit:
More Gore:
We didn’t want to wait too long as the sun was heating up the snow rather quickly. I dropped in first and was amazed by the quality of the snow. Perfect corn snow made for some fun GS turns down the upper face.
SheRa making some nice turns:
GeoMatt linking tele turns:
Smooth:
iski:
The snow stayed like this for most of the descent until we reached the flats down in the South Willow Creek drainage. Once into the trees we hit a lot of rotten and unconsolidated snow. We got onto the north facing side of the drainage and found much better snow. The climb out wasn’t all that bad. GPS definitely makes a big difference in thick woods. Once past the Silver couloir we decided to follow the aqueduct for part of the way out. I’ve never had a pleasant experience taking the aqueduct out, as it’s filled with hundreds of downed trees and stumps. On top of that the snow wasn’t continuous which made things a tad bit more difficult. Excellent day though. The Gore had served us well once again, and I can’t wait to come back for more.
TR: Red Peak, 13,189', Gore Range 5.16.06
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