Short and Sweet: East Ridge of North Star Mountain
I swilled the beer at the bottom of my can while watching the clouds form into a large mass in the sky outside the hotel room window. Sarah and I had spent the past four days puttering around Moab, and the forecast for the following day was to be entirely rain. The climbing we’d done the days before was fantastic, but I wasn’t terribly interested in spending the last day of our trip sightseeing. The end of winter was on the horizon, but the uncomfortably cold and icy grip it had on the Central Colorado Rockies hadn’t yet loosened. We made a judgment call. There was a period of bluebird days forecasted for home and we weren’t going to waste them. I had a couple ideas for what to do with a free day but one just wouldn’t stop coming up in the back of my mind. I’d never been to the top of North Star Mountain before. Another tick off of the list for the “Summit 62” project wouldn’t hurt either. An undisputed Tenmile-Mosquito Range classic, the East Ridge (3rd II) of North Star mountain ne