This was my first climb in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, and one of the few times I've climbed anything that's not a 14er. Heck, it's not even a 13er. This was also Candice's first climb of a 3rd class route. From Gerry Roach's Indian Peaks guidebook, the Northeast Ridge route on Jasper looked like it would make a good intro route for the more difficult climbs.

I met Candice at the 4th & Union park-n-ride at 06:00, and she drove us to the trailhead outside of Eldora. Unfortunately dogs must be leashed in the IPW, so I didn't bring Jake along - not to mention that I don't take him on climbs over class 2 as a rule. It seemed a few people were disregarding the leash rule, which is probably okay on the less popular routes.

We started up the Arapahoe Pass trail from the Fourth of July Trailhead at 07:15. The trail climbed steadily through aspen and spruce groves, with lots of colorful wildflowers everywhere. After about .5 miles we came to a trail junction and took the left fork to follow the Diamond Lake trail. This trail descended into the valley to cross Middle Boulder Creek, and we left the trail to head west and start bushwhacking to the basin under Jasper and its northeast ridge.

I saw a trail just before the creek crossing that passed a small waterfall and led to a marshy meadow, so we followed that until the trail seemed to die out. We should have crossed the creek first since our goal was more to the southwest and the creek came from the west. Looking around for a stream crossing we found a nice log that was wet and slippery in the middle, but with trekking poles to help our balance we made it across without getting wet. Good thing because the creek was over a foot deep at the crossing and a slip would have made for an uncomfortable hike.

Once across the creek, we followed many trail segments that led more or less uphill to the southwest. We'd lose the trail, or the trail would die out, then we'd follow a compass bearing and try to avoid the thicker woods, then pick up the trail again. This continued for a while until we passed to the south of Point 11190 as Roach suggests. The route flattens out and we passed a couple small ponds in a basin below a headwall of sorts, then we climbed up the headwall south of Point 12047, which is the eastern terminus of Jasper's southeast ridge. This led us into a large basin containing a lake, which we hiked past on its south side. From the west end of the lake, Roach suggests climbing west to a notch in the ridge then following the ridge to the summit.

I saw some interesting obstacles on the ridge more to the north of the west end of the lake, so I thought we should climb up there and see what it looked like. But first, we had to investigate the remains of a small single engine plane that crashed years ago. Unlike the crash my Dad and I explored on the southeast slopes of Mount Yale, the wreckage here was much more intact and confined to one small area. I took some pictures then we started up the talus slope to the ridge.

Foto ©2002 by John C. Maki

The first obstacle on the ridge was a tower about 40' tall, which was rather steep on all sides, and would have required some exposed class 3/4 moves to reach the top. Instead, we skirted around the tower to the south and climbed back up to the ridge. The exposure on this section of the ridge was very dramatic to the north, and peeking over the ridge crest gave us a great view of Mount Neva's steep southeast face. In general, the obstacles on this ridge could be easily bypassed on one side or the other, usually to the southeast. The ridge from the west side of the tower to the next major obstacle is an easy class 2 hike, so unless you want to tackle that first tower you might as well follow Roach's directions and reach the ridge further along.

          
Fotos ©2002 by John C. Maki

The next tower had a short, unexposed class 3 section to reach the top. I climbed up and scouted the other side of the tower to make sure an easy way dropped back down to the ridge, then told Candice to go ahead and climb up. She reached the top with no problem, then we continued along, following the ridge crest as much as possible. The crux tower looked imposing from a distance, appearing to be an obstacle best bypassed, but on closer inspection it didn't look too bad. A series of small ledges requiring some class 3 moves, including one tricky spot that was a little exposed, led to the top. That about ended the class 3 section and the rest of the climb was a talus scramble to the summit.

We reached a high point at 10:45 but it turned out to be a false summit. It wasn't apparent from the map, but there was a slightly higher summit to the west and I only found out when I walked over that way to get a better picture of beautiful Diamond Lake. After taking a picture of the turquoise lake I decided to continue to that summit and found a register proclaiming it to be the summit of Jasper Peak. The date on the front page of the register was July 14, 1991, which gives you an idea of this peak's popularity. Quite a contrast from the summit registers on peaks like Grays or Bierstadt, which often have to be changed out every week or two during the busy summer season.

          
Fotos ©2002 by John C. Maki

We hung out on the summit for about an hour, enjoying the nice sunny weather and excellent scenery. It seems that every valley on the eastern side of the Continental Divide held at least one pristine lake. Indian Peaks really is a beautiful area, despite the high usage it receives. At 12:00 we descended a steep talus and scree slope, which is the standard class 2 route from our basin. The talus was loose in many places, and it was a pain to descend, but it didn't take long to reach the lake again. This time we took more of a "high road" across some large talus blocks to avoid losing much elevation to the eastern entrance to the basin, then dropped down through some willows to the lower basin. I had to backtrack a couple times after taking too high of a route, but soon we were back in the forest trying to follow the same trail segments we found on the way up.

After a while we found the Diamond Lake trail, and we headed back to its junction with the Arapahoe Pass trail and followed that to the trailhead. There were a lot of people hiking the Arapahoe Pass trail, which was a little surprising since it was already 14:00 and the hottest part of the day was upon us. My preference is to be out of the sun or higher in altitude in this kind of weather. We reached the trailhead at about 14:30 and drove back in the start of the rush hour traffic to the park-n-ride.

This was a good intro to class 3 climbing and a good exercise in navigation to a seldom climbed, scenic peak. The variety of the rock on this mountain intrigued me. I'm looking forward to more climbs in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, but I really need to get those 14ers done...