Tabeguache (14,155) 5-19-2007
Tabeguache (14,155) 5-19-2007
goldenboy, Ivana Huckalot, mbsc
After seeing the looks of the north side of Tabeguache from Antero we knew it was looking prime so we decided to go after it this weekend.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...vanoandTab.jpg
We also knew it would be a slog... The North Face of Tabeguache is accessable from Brown's Creek TH which is at 8,960 ft. This makes for a 14 mile day with about 5,200 vert of climbing.
According to 14ers.com, Tabeguache is also called Mogwatavungwantsingwu (yeah, go ahead and try to pronounce that one!). Tabeguache is short for this, which was the name of a Ute tribe. Mogwatavungwantsingwu means "cedar-bark sun-slope people."
We camped the night before near the Brown's Creek TH and began hiking at 3:30 am. With the darkness of the night we got a bit confused at some of the trail intersections so that took a bit of time.
But finally dawn arrived. And we continued up the trail.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...hikinginam.jpg
We hiked in our shoes, since the trail was largely dry. Around 10,500 there were patches of snow, but not enough to warrant putting on skins or even our ski boots.
It's about 5.5 miles to Brown's Lake, and it took us about 3 hours to hike there. The lake was at about 11,000 feet.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...he/008lake.jpg
Ivana Huckalot enjoying the morning lake views.
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From the lake we could see Tabeguache, but we walked past the lake to obtain better views of our route. This pic shows our eventual routes.
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But getting over there required us to cross Brown's Creek which was running pretty high. So, we scoped out the area and finally found a make-shift bridge to cross the creek.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...tab/tab010.jpg
The bridge led us to a climber's route marked with cairns. Through the trees and a bit above the trees skins would have been helpful. Goldenboy and I didn't have our skins so we suffered through a bit of postholing. But it didn't last very long, only about 20 minutes. After that we were easily booting over frozen snow. When we began to head up the gully we put on our crampons.
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Ivana Huckalot near on a false summit.
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A couple of hours later, there was the summit! We summited around 10:30 or 10:45 am.
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From the summit we could get a great view of the N face of Shavano.
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A close up shows that people were hanging out on the summit!
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A look over toward Monarch Pass and Monarch Ski Area.
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Goldenboy and me on the summit, getting ready to ski!
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Finally it's time to ski! Goldenboy drops in and shreds it :D
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We found GREAT corn on this face around 11 am. Couldn't ask for better corn!
Ivana Huckalot's turn!
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My turn! (Oh yeah, I opted to go back to my old blue pants b/c I knew the trail would be muddy! No pink pants this time!)
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At the end of the couloir we began to go down the valley to find where we originally had crossed the stream.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...towardlake.jpg
..... (more below!)