Jasper Peak

Description

Elevation: - 12,923'
Location - West of Nederland in Colorado on the Continental Divide.

Trip Report(s)

John and I climbed this a few years ago in the spring, when it was still covered with snow. We went up the Arapahoe Pass trail from the Fourth of July mine, then split off to the southwest directly towards the mountain. At first we went up the cirque between the northeast and east ridges, then ascended the northeast ridge at a point just past the first tower (Pt. 12,047). From there we followed the ridge to the summit, then went along the east ridge, finally descending a snow-filled couloir around Pt. 12,587. This is the only point where it really got sketchy for me, because the first couloir John wanted to go down was steep. I say that because I couldn't see its slope as it angled away below us - like looking down a cliff. Since I only had my Columbia boots on and not my plastic mountaineering boots, I felt rather uncomfortable plunge stepping down that, ice axe in hand or not! We then went a little further east and found another couloir that, according to my calculation with the topo map, "only" had a 60° slope. That seemed steep enough to me, but doable, so we walked down that, kicking our heels into the hard snow. We returned to the frozen little unnamed lake in the middle of the cirque, and then hiked back out. A good day. Photos follow.

Photos

I took no camera that day, so had to rip off some photos from the Web. These are from John C. Maki's site, which includes a good trip report of some of the same route we did, albeit in the summer. Just imagine snow on everything for what John and I saw.

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