Ice Mountain

Ice Mountain – 13,950′ – CO’s 61st highest – Contiguous US’s 78th highest

Getting a late start after car-camping, we set fourth on the trailhead to Apostle basin, just south of Winfield, CO. The trailhead was packed but we managed to find a parking spot. We began hiking at ~9am? (Jesse?) and before too long we arrived at the border to the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. After a long, mostly flat hike, the trail pittered out and we found ourselves at the base of the Three Apostles, seemingly held up by a giant rock glacier (REALLY cool, kind of visible in the fourth picture above).

The trip around the rock glacier was easy enough, the walls of the glacier seemed to be formed so perfectly that I expected a bulldozer to power over the top of the mound and overtake us. The rocky-grass slope became a rapidly steeper rock field, closer to a vertical boulder field than a scree slope: rocks three feet wide occasionally rolled a few feet. Precarious at times, helmets would be good here.

We passed one person who was coming down near the top.  Soon-thereafter, within a stones throw of the saddle and the beginning of the ridge, dark clouds rolled in and thunder struck.  So close.  I snapped one final shot looking down into the valley, turned, and trekked downwards.

See this route at summitpost.org.