High Winds on Mount Lady Washington

Another weekend, another "Alpine Start" in the pre-dawn hours. This time, Amy and I, with the help of the intrepid Davide Lazatti, were planning on climbing Mount Lady Washington, one of the four buttress peaks of Long's Peak. This was partly a casual winter climb and partly a scouting expedition for various technical routes up Long's; Kiener's Route, Lamb's Slide, the Loft, and the Cables Route. In the process we'd hike up the 13,281' Mount Lady Washington, descend to the Boulder Field, check out the Keyhole, and return. It promissed to be a long, twelve-mile day with about 3900' of elevation gain. Amy and I have hiked the first half of this twice now, both times in winter, and knew what to expect.

We hit the trail at sunrise around seven and proceeded up well-packed snow for two miles. We saw conciderable traffic of hearty-looking ice climbers headed back down the mountain reporting high winds and blowing ice. Most of these climbers looked conciderably more studdly than we were feeling and our outlook was grim. We could hear the wind howling in the trees above, but so far things weren't too bad. At the bridge shortly before tree line, we stopped for a bite to eat. On our first time up here in November '03, Amy and I encountered some pretty strong winds but managed more than a mile of above-treeline hiking before finally turning back. We were more experienced, stronger, and better equipped this time with goggles, warmer boots, ice axes, and and much more. We figured we had a better than even chance of making it.

We girded our loins and went out to battle the winds. Snowshoes on (less sail area on our backs), we traversed across the slope getting thinner and thinner tree cover. Finally, we made a right-hand turn and headed directly up the slope into the full teeth of the gale. Davide was jubiulant and running around like mad. I was struggling to stand up and trying to keep every peice of my flesh covered from the wind's fury. I planted a couple of wands to mark our trail and we pressed onward.

Above treeline on the Long's Peak Trail looking west (left), north (center), and east (right). To the west, the Mt. Lady Washington East Ridge route is traced by the wands in my backpack.

This was nothing like what we'd encountered the first time! A layer of blowing snow and ice a couple person-heights thick conformed to the terrain and blew by at a terrific rate. Above this was just moving air without the abrasive particles. I'm a poor judge of wind speed, but I would read later that the Niwot Ridge weather station was clocking gusts at about 60 mph.

Very shortly, it became evident that we weren't going to make it much farther. Amy was knocked flat by one gust of wind and I was nearly taken out on several occasions. There is a 'danger threshhold' that you try not to cross when climbing a mountain. We weren't past that quite yet, but we were definitely past the lower 'fun threshhold' where something is no longer worthwhile. We turned tail a few hundred yards above treeline and made our way out. Somewhat dejected, but relieved to be out of the wind, we trudged back down the two miles to the car arriving at 11am.

Amy and I at Dream Lake with Hallet and Flat Top to the west.	Davide in the sunlight on Emerald Lake.	The orographic cloud front over Long's Peak. Standing-wave clounds like this usually mean strong winds are present. Mount Lady Washington is visible as the gentle double-bump between two sharper, darker peaks just left of center.

The day was still young, however. Davide had never been to RMNP, so we drove up to Bear Lake and did the popular hike to Emerald Lake (two miles each way) past some spectacular and relatively sheltered terrain. The sky was blue and the sun was warm. Amy and I did this same hike last year and it seemed a whole lot more involved and strenuous then. We arrived at Emerald Lake and Davide immediately set off up one of the couloirs on the south face of Flattop. He returned half an hour later and we made our way back to the cars by a slightly different route. Pretty scenery and a worthwhile finish to a not-so-successful day.

The Wilderness Journal

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