The Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness in central Colorado is a vast area of deep valleys, jagged peaks and roaring rivers. Far into the wilderness, 8 miles from the nearest road, is stunning Snowmass Lake. Hagerman Peak soars almost 3,000 feet above, and a large snowfield rolls up to the rugged summit ridges of Snowmass Mountain, one of the 54 peaks in the state over 14,000 feet high.
Here are photographs from my solo backpacking trip in September 1998 to climb Snowmass Mountain.
After 3 miles of hiking up the valley, this is a tantalizing glimpse up the Bear Creek side valley. Just right of the center is the pointy summit of North Snowmass Mountain, and the official summit behind. This is the only view of the peak for the next 5 miles, until you finish climbing up to the lake.
Hagerman Peak rises above Snowmass Lake. When you hike up the creek toward the lake, you pass a number of waterfalls in a narrow gorge, then suddenly this fantastic view appears. The full panorama is in the next image.
This mile long lake is surrounded by high mountains. To the south, Trail Rider Pass climbs over 12,400 feet into the remote Lead King Basin. Directly in the view are Hagerman Peak and Snowmass Mountain. Actually, the highest point is in the background right. Farthest right is North Snowmass, then next to it is the official summit of Snowmass Mountain.
If you have good weather, this lake has excellent and popular campsites near the shore - but no campfires are allowed.
To climb Snowmass Mountain, the trail follows around the left side of the lake, then begins a laborious slog up the loose rock and scree clearly visible in the middle of the image. Not a pleasant hike! After 1000 feet vertical of tough climbing, it eases into boulder slabs and grassy areas. However, this was September. Earlier in the summer its mostly snow the higher you go up.
This is as far as I climbed. After struggling through the exhausting section of loose scree and gravel, I decided to stop at 13,300 feet. This image shows the summit at 14,092 feet. Its not easy to turn around when you're this close to the top, but the thought of descending that loose scree after getting more tired made it a good decision. Next time!
I would definitely recommend climbing this peak earlier than September, preferably in July when the lower scree section is snow-covered. It is steep enough to use an ice-axe and maybe crampons.
At the highpoint of my climb, the views were tremendous. This is to the north, with the rough ridge that encircles the snowfield and the Roaring Fork valley in the distance.
Looking east, the less familiar side of the Maroon Bells peaks appears in the distance (in the center of the image), as does Pyramid Peak just to the left in the far distance. Snowmass Lake is just out of view down to the left in the shadows. Hagerman Peak rises up on the right side.
As wonderful as this scene is, its time to go back down!
When my backpacking trip was over, I hiked back to normal civilization. Well, not exactly normal, but Aspen. Where else can you find a small house for an average $1 million? And where else can you be in a traffic jam of Range Rovers?
From Aspen, I returned to Denver over Independence Pass. The west side is an experience - its extremely narrow. Its so narrow you can't really enjoy it from the driver seat - its easy to scrape against another car or the guardrail. This is not the place to race your new Ferrari, unless you like to scrape up the sides. After the narrow section, the road opens into some beautiful valleys with old mining cabins. Then at the summit, you can look eastward to La Plata Peak, another 14,000 foot mountain (to the right side of the image).
The next pass on the route back to Denver was Fremont Pass. Normally, this is an ugly industrial wasteland - with a gigantic molybdenum mining complex right on the summit. A whole mountain is being systematically ripped apart and dumped into large tailings reservoirs nearby. This is the ugliest pass over the Continental Divide that I've seen.
However, this time it was different. The sun was setting, and a storm was brewing over the Mosquito and Ten-Mile ranges. Also, a light dusting of snow was sprinkled on the highest peaks. This image was taken from the top of the pass looking south at Mt. Arkansas (13,800 ft). For the handful of people lucky enough to be driving the pass that night, this was a spectacular sunset. Overall, I'd say it was the most dramatic sight I have ever seen in the mountains. Who would've thought Fremont Pass?!