Yet another old TR to put on 14erskiers.com… Hopefully a new post later on today…
Partners: Brittany, Jordan, Kelly, Jeremy
Mt Lindsey is a high peak lying just at the head of the Huerfano River, just east of some other high peaks: Blanca, Ellingwood, and Little Bear. Access is long, following a scenic road next to the river for many miles from the tiny town of Gardner. Along the roadway, we spotted a crevice in the rocks which contained a statue of the Virgin Mary and some candles. Were we in Peru or Mexico? No, just southern Colorado, but it still feels like a whole different world down here, well removed from Crested Butte, let alone the Front Range. Its experiences like this that makes seeking out Colorado’s highest summits so worthwhile to me and many others.
We arrived Saturday afternoon as a small storm was winding down. Jeremy and I fired up the snowmobiles to scout out the route for the next day, while Kelly and Brittany set up a campsite down valley on public land. It’s a good thing we scoped things out, as it made our predawn routefinding much easier, and allowed the snowmobile track to set up. Jordan met us a little later and we went to bed early, given our 3am wake-up time. We drove back up to the snowmobiles and hit the trail around 4:30, and started skinning 45minutes later. The sun eventually made its’ presence and lit up the stunning NE face of Blanca and Ellingwood.
We kept skinning up the valley, one drainage too far as it turned out, but caught this great view of the Crestone group as we ascended.
We crested a small col and realized that we needed to drop a few hundred feet into the next drainage. Given the flatness of the terrain, we decided to have a figure 8 competition to keep it interesting. With Jordan judging, Brittany and I took the crown with ease. 
Another quick climb found us at another saddle, where we had an amazing view of the San Luis valley, covered with clouds.
Looking North again, the Crestone group had also disappeared into the clouds
We booted up a ridge and found ourselves at the 13,100’ saddle between the Iron Nipple and Lindsey, with our somewhat intimidating route up Lindsey laid out before us.
We again dropped some elevation, and began booting up Lindsey’s N face. At many points along this climb, we were on very exposed and mixed terrain, but everyone made it up just fine.
Along the way, plenty of other great looking lines kept popping out, like these lines above Kelly’s visor.
We reached the summit and were greeted by the harsh revelation that we had only reached a false summit and the real one looked like a long ways off.
Thankfully the climb from the false summit only took 15 minutes and we were on the summit at 2:30pm. Brittany approaches the real summit:
The good news was that we had almost 2,000’ of good snow below us. Jeremy rips it up:
Jordan:
Frank:
Kelly:
Brittany:
and lower, with a view of our line:
Our day was far from over, though, and we had another 600’ climb back to the 13,100’ col. At this point the clouds were thickening and the winds were picking up. Here’s Brittany dropping off the ridge to get out of the wind.
We followed the correct drainage out this time, which would be an absolutely amazing run in deep powder, as the drainage was fairly wide and reminded me of a steep groomed run at a ski area, for thousands of feet. We made it back to the sleds and then the car, 14 hours after starting in the morning. In total, we covered about 7 miles by snowmobile, another 11miles by foot, and skied around 5,500’ of vertical. Another great day in the mountains with great people…
