I Still Can't Fell My Face: Drift Peak and Fletcher Mountain

I checked my watch nervously for the third time in thirty minutes. I took a deep breath and continued up the slope from where I was standing in the middle of the blown-over skin track. I couldn’t help but feel like the cornice above me was going to let loose at any moment. I’m no genius, but I wasn’t going to be wrong that day.

I had begun my journey up to the cirque from the trailhead a little after dawn, after dropping off a close friend at Copper Mountain for work. The stretch of the tenmile range I found myself in being a little ways south from I-70 towards Leadville. It was a bluebird day, and I couldn’t ask for much better weather. I just wished at the moment that it was a little warmer. I would come to regret that wish as the day dragged on. I was in the Mayflower cirque to claim the two peaks making up the south end of the massive bowl, starting up the southwest ridge I would scramble my way to the small hump of a summit that made up Drift Peak, and then continue upwards around a few slightly exposed rock spires until I got to the summit of Fletcher Mountain. The Southwest Ridge route was pretty straightforward, I just happened to have planned my bid for a day following two weeks of some of the heaviest snowfall Summit County has ever seen in any given February. I take the conditions very seriously when I go for any mountaineering objective, checking all of the necessary information centers before I even go out, and doing a double check while I’m out there myself, especially in the way of avalanches. Everything that I was evaluating was giving me the feeling that this was my weather window to go. I just sometimes don’t entirely trust the facts. Today would result in being a good example of why.

The approach to the bottom of the Mayflower Cirque is a mellow dirt road used by the Forest Service until it turns into a faint rocky trail leading to a collection of mine ruins at the end of it. In the winter, the dirt road isn’t even recognizable, turning itself into a pretty buffed-out skin track thanks to my fellow backcountry skiers and snowboarders in the area. The packed-down winter trail lends itself to be a fairly quick approach. I was very thankful for that. Nothing seems to boil my blood faster on a climb as of late than having to waste energy postholing (even with snowshoes or my splitboard) through miles of deep snow. Today, I opted for the use of snowshoes instead of my trusty splitboard due to the nature of the long ridge that meandered up to the more technical sections of the route. It would be easier for me to just walk the whole damn approach than have to take on and off my skins multiple times before the real vertical work even began.

The morning sun peeked over the summit of Atlantic Peak to the North of Fletcher as I emerged from the trees of the trail into the open bowl. It warmed my face slightly, which was highly appreciated. In an effort to have the most stable snowpack that I could, I opted to go on one of the more colder days during the week. I should have grown my beard out more beforehand, but the icicles coming off of my mustache told me that probably wouldn’t have made much a difference anyhow. The skin track before me meandered up the bowl and to the right, towards the first saddle that I would have to crest before starting the “actual” ridgeline of the route. There just so happened to be a giant cornice hanging over the top of said saddle, separating the dilapidated skin track from what I could make of the horizon behind it.

I took a deep sigh and shrugged. Half the battle of getting to the top of any one given peak is the challenge of finding a way to get there. I just finished reading Americans on Everest, a book by James Ullman chronicling the first American expedition to the Himalayan peak. In the chapters covering their approach to the base of the peak, Ullman jokingly refers to the hike there being the “hardest part of climbing the damn thing.” Instances like this, i’d have to fitfully agree.

I followed the skin track until it came to right below the cornice. Taking careful stock of the snowpack around me, I continued parallel to it, still slightly under the fattest part, until where I came to a point that the saddle rounded over in a roller-style fashion where I could walk up from there. I wasn’t comfortable in the least bit being under the massive outcropping of the cornice at all, but it was the way I took, and I’m glad fate didn't take advantage of my foolishness in those moments. Looking up from where I had crested onto the first saddle below the long ridge extending upwards, the route seemed to meander through a few large boulders jutting out from the knife-edge of the ridge, until it met with the steep slope below the summit of Drift Peak. Like I said, pretty straightforward. I just had to rely on leg and lung to get me there. It wasn’t until the pitch between the summit of Drift and Fletcher when I would have to actually think a little bit.

With my snowshoes still strapped to my boots, I hopped from one large rock to another up the lower ridge. I’m glad I didn’t take the time to remove them, as before I knew it, I was on the slope leading up to Drift Peak. The snow there was spotty in coverage, as the wind had scraped it free of the rocky face in many areas, but I still relied on the crampons on the underside of my snowshoes for adequate traction to continue my slog upwards. The summit of Drift was pretty less than exciting. The real prize was Fletcher.

I continued on from the top of Drift Peak until I came to the base of a short pitch of steep icy-snow that led to the remainder of the ridge between the two. At this point it was a good idea to switch into my crampons. While doing so, I took the time to squeeze one of the energy gels that I had brought with into my mouth so I could stave off the eventual hunger that I knew was coming. I had intended to complete the day’s climb in a shorter amount of time than most of those that I had done before. Today I meant to be a little more of a challenge. As soon as I realized that the tube to my camelbak was frozen, and I wouldn’t be able to thaw it out until I got back down to the truck, I knew it would be. I dissolved the remainder of the half-frozen energy gel underneath my tongue and in my cheeks as I finished tightening the straps on my crampons. “Better get this done quick,” I huffed to myself in the thin air, I knew I was going to be feeling the beginning effects of dehydration for sure on the way down.

The short pitch of technical movement that remains on the ridgeline between Drift Peak and Fletcher Mountain are reasonably exposed enough to keep a ton of people from trying the traverse in the winter. I basically cut my own tracks up the route from the top of the first saddle, which was expected, but at this current point in the climb I was certainly blazing what seemed to be my own sort of variation on the route. After a few questionably airy moves on the side of the ridge facing the inside of the cirque, I passed between a few large blocs, and then hopped on a couple before popping up on the summit. The sun was shining, my face and fingers were still devilishly cold, and I could hear the blasting of the nearby ski resorts in the distance. I’m glad I did too, because they reminded me of the focus I would have to have on the snowpack on the way down. The sun had been shining on the open slopes for hours now, warming the multiple layers of snowfall, and loosening everything up. I just had to make sure that my sometimes clumsy ass wouldn’t make anything release.

After taking a video with my GoPro, and attempting to take some decent pictures of myself up there, I began my way back through the spires of rock to where I had come from. Looking up after finishing the moves of the technical section, I realized that a group of goats had followed my path up to where we were at. Or actually possibly the opposite on who followed who, depending on who you like more at this point in the trip report, me or the goats. The avalanche blasting on the surrounding peaks had intensified, and I realized that the nearby mine closer to Leadville must’ve been doing some operations that day as well. I also realized that the near-rhythmic blasting was causing the warming snowpack on the saddle below me to move a little. Sharing the same wide-eyed expression as the goats 20 feet away, we both moved quickly to get somewhere else. The descent from the slope off of Drift Peak was quick, but did feel like a slog with the little food (and water) that I had been able to take in during the day so far. I was jolted from my self pity on the final steps down when I felt a deep “whump” across the saddle that I was about to hike across. The same deep cornice that had given me the jitters earlier in the day now released and dropped some 25 feet in front of me, below it a few smaller slabs of snow giving way as well. There are few things that I’ve experienced to date that have made me simultaneously clench my buttcheeks and suck in air at the same time than that did in that moment. Thank God I was more concerned about wanting water.

I continued across the saddle, making sure each step was not anywhere close to the edge of the slope, and eventually came to where my tracks had come up. Interestingly (amazingly) enough, the slide had released in such a way more towards further into the bowl of the cirque, dodging the skin track up, and staying well clear of the ruins of the mine. Someone in the past certainly had better thinking than mine, and I was thankful for their careful planning. Staying on the skin track kept me clear of most of the dangerous terrain until I regained with the trail at the bottom of the cirque. I was thirsty, and I hauled ass for the rest of the way. I had to pick that same friend up from work now and I was pretty hungry and thirsty at that point.

If there’s a few reminders that this day out has given me it’s this: mind your camelbak tube, screw active mines, and always trust the goats. I’m forever thankful for my home here in the Rockies.

***All writing, pictures, and content property of Trent Hillier and unable to be used without prior permission***