Another old TR:
I couldn’t find a partner, so the fairly easy and safe Columbia seemed like a good option without a partner. A few inches fell the day before, so trailbreaking was tough work solo, but I went up the Horn fork basin and summited via the W flank/ S ridge route in about 5 hours. I was able to skin the entire route, which was good given this mountains reputation as being a loose pile of scree, especially on this side of the mountain.
Horn Fork basin, Harvard’s S face looking good:
Birthday Peak, I wouldn’t mind skiing this on my birthday:
My skintrack leading to the summit, Princeton on the left, Yale’s Silver Creek bowl on the right.
Taylor Reservoir, making me wish I could just drive over Cottonwood pass and save some time getting back to Crested Butte:
Summit shot:
I started descending the W face before noon, but this was still later than I wanted to be. I chose Columbia because it offered some safe ridge routes, so I stayed on the ridge crest and the wet stuff flowed down the double fall line away from me and into a gully. I guess I should have started at midnight, but I was still in a perfectly safe area on the ridge, so I never felt particularly vulnerable. You can make out the wet debris in this photo:
That was about it for Columbia, it’s a pretty standard Sawatch 14er that wasn’t my favorite although solo missions are always a little more interesting, even on a ho-hum peak like Columbia.
