Emily had mentioned Cole while climbing together and noted how I’d like him. Eventually, she gave me his number and we figured we’d do East ridge of Colfax Peak together to see how we vibed. Cole had just done the North Ridge of Baker two days earlier so it was convenient for him and I was excited to do some snow climbing rather than rock. Cole mentioned he had gotten out of shape in colorado and I wasn’t feeling like suffering so we decided to split it up into a mellow two days. I drove up monday morning and met Cole in B-ham where we grabbed some groceries and headed up to heliotrope ridge TH. the road is a classic FS road and after hundreds of potholes, we arrived.
Baker is the big snowy thing on the left(the north ridge in the left skyline), Colfax is the smaller rocky thing on the right.
The Hike in was quick. The trail is steep but we quickly arrived at our camp, overlooking the baker seracs. Since we had lots of time and didn’t want to get attacked by mosquitos, we decided to do some serac cragging with our four Ice screws. I had just got quarks so it was exciting to actually climb ice with them. I toproped some AI3, we did some laps, and then headed back up to camp. I made the mistake of not bringing a mosquito net(I don’t have one since I don’t consider them ‘sexy’ pieces of gear) so after some quick dinner, we tried to get an early sleep, aiming for a 3:30am wake up. Cole used his phone for the alarm and I woke up at 05:00. Apparently Cole just wanted to sleep in. Given that Colfax is a pretty chill peak, I was fine with it and we got going by 05:15.
After an hour of hiking, we got to the snow. The Slog up the Coleman was hot but easy. We brought skis to make the way down quicker but even with that added weight, we were at the col by 09:00. After simuling a steep snow traverse over some crevasses, there was a short steep snow pitch and we topped out at 11:00. We took a five minute break, then decided that it was kind of windy and started our way down.
Traversing
On the summit
The way down was pretty uneventful. We descended before corn-o’clock so it was brutal on the legs but we were at camp by 14:00. After stopping at camp, we blitzed down the trail passing hikers. At one point a group of hikers got out of the way for us but directed us toward the toilets. After joking that they must’ve thought we were two horny gay mountaineers, we climbed back up to the trail and made clear our straight-ness before continuing and arriving at the car at 15:30.
Cole skiing suncups
All in all it was a great chill two days in the alpine. Cole and I got along well and have since become regular climbing partners. Hopefully I can come back one day to climb some of those hard ice routes on Colfax.
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