Climbing Party: Amanda Harnden
R/T Mileage: 10.6
Elevation Gain: 4,826'
Gerry Roach writes in his book that by taking the East Ridge of Mt. Yale to it’s summit is longer than the standard route, but that the additional length and effort is worth the solitude found on the route. He was right. For 5 hours and 12 minutes, we did not see one single soul on the trail – ahead or behind us.
We arrived in Buena Vista the night before with the hope of finding a good spot to hunker down for the evening ahead of the 3:30 AM start time. We ended up settling in for the evening in the back of Amanda’s car at the Avalanche trailhead, which worked out great, as the trailhead was mere steps from where we were.
We were on trail by 3:30, and started making our way up the Colorado Trail with the hope of finding Yale’s East Ridge trail, located 3.3 miles ahead. Our objective was summit at about 8:30, and get down as the weather forecast was calling for early morning precip in BV, and that meant clouds rolling in earlier than normal. So we were on our way!
Our heads were foggy on this morning- we stopped frequently, our steps weren’t deliberate, we were certainly grumpy from lack of sleep. For the first two hours, we put our heads down, and kept putting one foot in front of the other hoping that when the sun finally came up, it would generate more of an alert in our bodies, and wake us up! I can’t remember being so exhausted in the first few miles of a hike, and it began to wear on me mentally, knowing that we had a really long day ahead. The sun finally came up, and renewed our spirits! On a shoulder ridge in the Collegiates was a great place to be to see the sun come up!
We came to the clearing in the woods, where the guidebook says to make a 90 degree left hand turn to begin the East Ridge of Yale. It was blatantly obvious for us, as someone kindly fashioned an enormous arrow made out of dead trees. If you missed the huge arrow, there were also two large rock cairns, and a line of dead branches leading you in the right direction.
The first portion of the hike as standard class 1 hiking. We gained 2,530’ in the first 3.3 miles to get to the Silver Creek Saddle. From here, the remaining route is a class 2/3 scramble to the summit of Yale. Once you leave the Colorado trail, and start off on the East Ridge, it is definitely slower going. If you brought your helmet, this is a good time to put it on, as loose rock is everywhere. The wind was picking up, and was in our faces. Follow the ridge over and around several large points. The summit of Yale is not too far off, but it will take a little while to get there! The rock is loose in several places, especially around 13,000’ where the ridge gets its steepest. For some perspective, this portion took 38 minutes to go .25 miles, and we gained 538 vertical feet.
 |
| Climbing the talus - the last two miles looks like this! We came from lookers right around the two points in the distance |
 |
| First getting on to the summit ridge! |
On the way down we decided to take the standard route back. The thought of going back down the ridge seemed like a lot of work for our beaten up bodies. The standard route didn't seem to be a cakewalk either...it was a direct slog from the parking lot, a steep, direct route. It seemed longer I think because we had been up and packs were getting heavy and knees were getting sore. Plenty of marmots along the way to keep us entertained however :)
 |
| Marmot on patrol |
 |
| Coming down Denny Gulch |
In the end, the (b)east ridge of Mt. Yale kicked our asses! The route we took gave us solitude, great views and awesome scrambling. I would have to agree with Mr. Roach, that the route is a classic. The only issue with this choice of routes is the 2.9 mile downhill grunt back to the Avalanche trailhead. I would recommend stashing a bike in the woods at the Denny trailhead. Walking 2.9 miles back to Avalanche is the last thing you will want to do after this route!
No comments:
Post a Comment