TR: Indian Peaks FA

Took some amazing pics yesterday, had a great trip, thought you might enjoy.

Yesterday, Chris, from Glenwood and myself from the Front Range, met at Dairy King in Empire and rode past Grand Lake

to the Monarch Lake TH.

Early morning moose tracks

Fall is on its way out, winter is already knocking with morning frosts and iced over water

Too many waterfalls to count

Great trail, unbelievably beautiful

Finally, the target, Lone Eagle Peak appeared

We reflected on our options at Mirror Lake

We had planned on tackling the North Ridge, Stetner's Route. We had no guide (not even an MP printout!) and knew route-finding, especially on the descent, would be tricky. Everything north facing was holding quite a bit of snow.

We set our turn back time at 11am (estimates: 5 hrs for 11 pitches, safely 2 hours for unknown descent, back to trail by dark, ~6pm). We reached Crater Lake 10:45.

The base of Lone Eagle by 11:45 at what we believed to be the start of North Face route (don't think it is, keep in mind, no guide/clue where we were)

Chris circling the base of Lone Eagle, in search of sunny rock

Man looking at mountains

This cirque is amazing. It's a climbers dream. So much beautiful rock.

The Diamond?

We referred to this one as the Diamond. If anyone has any info, please let me know, I am very interested in this rock and need no excuse to return to this area.

From across the valley, I estimate the face to be approximately 2000 feet of vertical, sheer, intimidating granite.

Even some of its features were similar to the Diamond. After a long approach (maybe 10 miles?), a steep approach would lead to low angle, rotten looking entrance pitches (North Chimney). This would bring you to a Broadway type ledge. From our distance, this intimidating face offers very few weaknesses. Unrelenting steepness. Even it's own Notch, except this one had (potentially huge) ice already forming down it.

Please advise on what this is and what established routes exist or offer your services as a partner for adventure!

OK, back to the adventure at hand. Chris going up steeper, snowier slopes.

We thought this was the opening ledge for Solo Flight. Current conditions obviously more involving than Class 4 hike.

We gave up on summit hopes and started looking for fun routes. We found this short face just south of the icy ramp. I lead an easy chimney to tall steps route just out of frame.

We then TRed and slayed a fun route down the middle of the face.

Lastly, we both TRed a killer route. Location, exposure, quality rock, funness of moves, continuous, mentally and physically challenging, undoubtedly a First Ascent. Although Peter Mortimer was not there to document it, I got a few good pics.

Detailed route info:
mountainproject.com/v/color…

We lost sunlight around 1pm. The rock turned cold, wind picked up, and we were ready to hit the trail and quit shivering by 4. You can see our rock, highlighted in red.

After dropping all the way down to the marshy area below Triangle Lake, we rock hopped back to Mirror Lake and hiked it out.

One more waterfall shot on the way out

The sun sets on another amazing day in the mountains. Unfortunately, we did the last 1/2 of the out-hike in the dark and Dairy King (as well as the entire town of Idaho Springs) was already closed.

Ryan Kane wrote:The Diamond? We referred to this one as the Diamond. If anyone has any info, please let me know, I am very interested in this rock and need no excuse to return to this area. From across the valley, I estimate the face to be approximately 2000 feet of vertical, sheer, intimidating granite.

Jeff Lowe provided some info on this wall over on SuperTopo, mentioning that he and George Lowe "did an 800' 5.10 face and crack line" on the wall (see the photo with the route drawn in 3 posts down from the post I linked to).

I was so happy to see these photos last night! Nice work and thanks for posting the info!

What a nice little adventure! Thanks for posting...

Excellent reminder of the adventures in our own front yard...

Thanks Ryan!

ask and you shall receive! thanks John, exactly what I was hoping for. 2000' might have been slight exaggeration but from valley floor, vertical rise is quite huge.

See Shawn- I'm really not a boulderer! Although 10 miles is a long way to hike for a few TRs.

Ryan,

My friend Peter visited this wall earlier in the summer:

mountainproject.com/v/color…;

I'd like to have a go next summer as well.

I skied into Crater Lake one January and noticed the big ice hose coming down the left side of that cliff. I took some slides of it, but these are buried in boxes of slides and won't be easy to find.