Fleetmack.com - Mt. of the Holy Cross

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Mt. of the Holy Cross Climb Photos
08-12-2006
Summit Elevation - 14,005
Elevation Gain: 5600 ft.
Trip Distance: 12 miles
Total Round-Trip Climb Time (including 30 minutes on summit): 9:25
4WD Required: nope, 95 Accord made it just fine
Exhaustion Factor (on scale of 1-10): 6
Scenery Factor (on scale of 1-10): 7 (would have rated it higher, but clouds were everywhere)

After 1/3 of the population of the greater Denver metro area backed out of this planned trip, I decided to climb Mt. of the Holy Cross alone on Saturday. I got a later start than I wanted and ended up leaving Denver around 12:45am. Drive about 100 miles to Exit 171 (between Avon and Vail) ... get on HWY 24E and drive through Minturn to a small dirt road, Tigiwon Road. It is on the right and is right before you cross the Eagle River. The drive is 8.5 miles up this road, my Honda Accord made it just fine, but I had to take it slow as she was recently aligned and I didn't want to mess that up. Took about 45 minutes for me to go up the 8.5 miles, but I was probably over-cautious. I got the the Halfmoon trailhead around 3:30am. After driving by 7,452 parked cars on the road and at the trailhead, I finally found a parking spot, unpacked, and got ready to go ...

Now I have done a few hikes in the dark before, but I wasn't alone on those and I was feeling quite intimidated. I got my pack on, put fresh AAA's in the headlamp, and headed up to register at the trailhead. I got a bit nervous at this point and strongly considered going to my car to take a nap and start climbing once it got light out. I must admit, I was a little scared of hiking alone through the forest in the middle of the Sawatch mountains while pitch-dark! However, due to the 7,452 cars at the trailhead, I wanted to get a jumpstart on the day so I could avoid a re-creation of the summits of Quandary, Bierstadt, and Evans (translation: I didn't want to have 400 people on the summit with me). Hesitantly, nervously, and with headlamp shining brightly, I started hiking up the trail at 3:50am.

A twig breaking here, a leaf blowing there ... I was quite paranoid and stopped several times to listen for noises and try to spot a human-hungry creature of the night in the woods. I found some fortitude in the fact that Mr. Glock was riding with me on my hip. On the way up, over and over in my head I debated turning around. I was tired, both mentally and physically. I did a lot of weight-training on the legs this week, so they were burning already. I got about 3 hours of sleep, I was exhausted and had a long day ahead of me, and hiking solo I was finding it hard for self-motivation. I told myself, "Bryan, just make it up to Halfmoon pass, then you can take a nap, eat something, and decide from there, but you're at least making it up to Halfmoon Pass's Summit." Before I knew it, I was there ... took me just over an hour, probably pretty slow. I sat down on a rock, converted the headlamp to "red glow" mode, and ate a Snickers Marathon bar. Holy shit are those delicious. I sat there about 20 minutes and debated wether to go on or not, I decided to descend Halfmoon pass to the camping areas and see how I felt from there. I hiked down Halfmoon pass to the camping area in no time and right around the camping areas, the sun started to give me some light. I got a second wind and was waking up. I was sure, at this point, that I'd be able to summit today.

Started climbing up to get back above timberline for the 2nd time this morning and finally got there. The trail turns into a trail/talus field shortly after. The trail is easy to find, mainly due to carins roughly the size of a 13er. Basically stick as close to the ridge as you can and follow it around to the North Peak. Around 7:30am I finally passed my first hiker of the day. He was on his way down, said there were 4 more people ahead of me, all of them camped at Halfmoon campsite (although not together) ... translation: I was the first one of the morning to leave the main trailhead, and I didn't see anyone behind me. I got up the North Ridge at about 8:30 and the 4 people the guy earlier had spoke of were on their way down, they told me I could make it in 1/2 hour if I pushed it. I had a goal of summiting in 5 hours, so I trucked on up. Extra motivation, the summit would be to myself! There was a guy behind me about 1/4 mile now (he turned out to be hiker63 from www.14ers.com) so I kicked it into high gear. There are carins everywhere on this final stretch and the patterns make no sense. Some are far south, some are far north. I recommend sticking as far North as possible on this final stretch, not sure why those other carins exist. I made it to the summit right at 9:00 for a summit time of 5:10 (with probably a combined 1/2 hour of breaks as I was feeling weak this day).

I had the summit to myself for about 10 minutes, had a Cliff Bar and refilled the Camelback with some Propel for my descent. Then hiker63 from 14ers.com showed up. A group of 3 from Glenwood Springs showed up. Company is always nice, so I stayed on the summit longer than normal so I could descend with hiker63 (aka, Barry). Around 9:30 we left the summit and headed on down. The clouds were everywhere but didn't appear to be threatening. On the way down I bet we passed 50 people going up to the summit. That may be an exaggeration, but I'm not sure. Either way, I was very glad to have left so early as I enjoy the seclusion and I don't like being around the dogs on the mountain (my allergies are bad enough without 'em!).

I had been hearing horror stories about how you have to climb 1000 feet on the descent and how you're so tired, this didn't affect me much. Although this climb is 5600 vertical feet (500 more than Longs, 200 less than Belford/Oxford) I wasn't really tired like I was after those said mountains. It started to rain on us about the time we re-summitted Halfmoon Pass, so we trucked it down the last 1.7 miles as fast as possible. We made it down to the parking lot around 1:15 for a descent of 3:45, and a total round-trip time of 9:25.

The amount of gratification I got from this climb was immense due to how great I felt (physically and mentally) after the climb, and the fact that I considered quitting about an hour into the hike. The clouds prevented me from getting the pictures I would have wanted to get as this looks to be a VERY scenic climb. I will likely do this one again strictly to get some good pictures. I had been wanting to climb Holy Cross for about 3 years now, so I was thrilled to finally get it done. All-around, this was a wonderful experience, a great 5th peak of the summer, and my 17th overall 14er!

Check out my pictures of this climb here.