Mount Lady Washington

Description

Elevation: - 13,281'
Location - Northeast of Long's Peak in Colorado in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Trip Report(s)

On March 16, 2003, John, Sally and I set out to climb Mount Lady Washington, the NE end of the cirque around Chasm Lake and right across from the Diamond face on Longs Peak. This is an abbreviated trip report. Photos follow.

We started at the Longs Peak trailhead at 9,410' at about 7:00AM (not quite an alpine start! :-) It was a fairly rapid hike up the 4.5 miles to Mills Moraine. Above treeline the snow was patchy, being windblown and packed where there was still snow cover (pretty standard for Longs Peak this time of year). We stopped and had a quick "brunch" not too far from where the trail splits between the route to Chasm Lake and the Boulder Field. At this point Mt. Lady Washington was in full view in front of us. It didn't look very high or hard, but then John reminded us that (a) our view was very foreshortened, looking straight at it, and (b) the elevation gain from where we were standing to the summit (less than a mile) was equal to the elevation gain we had just hiked up in 4.5 miles.

At this point Sally decided to descend back to the car - her feet were giving her trouble. John and I wanted to summit, so we set off up the broad slope of talus towards the top. It was not technically hard at all, just a boulder and talus mix with snow in patches between. The biggest issue climbing this type of slope is not spraining an ankle by slipping off a rock into a hole. And since all the boulders are balanced against each other and can move at a moment's notice, that can be challenge enough! Anyway, we slogged up the hill, with John pulling far out into the lead. I was happy to be heading uphill at all, given my lack of acclimation - it had been almost a year since I had been over 13,000'.

After an hour I finally reached the summit (13,281'), finding John comfortably esconced behind a rock out of the wind. He had already taken a bunch of pictures, because the views from the top were quite fantastic. We were staring across the cirque created by Chasm Lake right at "the Diamond" cliff face on Longs. We could see all the standard features on Longs peak - the Loft, the Notch, the Diamond, Broadway, the Keyhole. In the far distance to the west were the Flat Tops, and to the north across RMNP the Mummy Range was beautiful. To the east were the Twin Sisters, and then the plains, clearly visible over 20 miles away, spreading out forever to the horizon. To the south was Mt. Meeker (13,911' and a future goal of mine).

We then started down, heading more and more to the left (north) as we descended. John was trying to find a quicker way down than what we had come up, but ultimately it was all about the same. I was getting pretty wobbly legged from the effort at altitude (like I said, I wasn't very acclimated), and when we had to cross a couple of moderately steep snowfields asked for one of John's poles to use as a brake if I started to slide. After negotiating those we hit the trail about a 1/2 mile north of where we had left it, and quickly hiked the 4.5 miles back to the trailhead and car, where Sally was waiting. We arrived back around 2:00. So it took us approximately seven hours to hike 11 miles round trip, with an elevation gain of almost 3,900'. Not great, but with me being out of practice not bad, either.

Photos

Very nice panorama John shot from the summit of Mt. Lady Washington. If you scroll from left to right, you will see in order:

• The plains

• Mt. Meeker

• The Loft

• Lamb's Slide

• Broadway

• The Notch

• The Diamond

• The Keyhole

• The Boulder Field

(Photo by John Stoddard)

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