Huron peak - 14003' - NW Slopes Class 2
December 2011
Mandy and I decided to climb Huron Peak since finals had just ended and I was on break from school. Amazingly I was able to drive all the way to Winfield in my car before the snow got much deeper at the start of the Huron 4WD road. We brought our skis to skin up the road which was my first time using them. It was a cold but sunny day and by the time we made it to the Huron Trailhead at the end of the road the sun was just coming over the mountains. We stashed the skis and I changed boots before starting up the trail which to our surprise there was a snowshoe track already in place making our job easier. We followed it through the trees switchbacking up the steep slope. A few hundred feet below treeline though the track ended and we had to wallow through waist deep snow for a couple hundred feet. Luckily we reached treeline soon after and we entered the high basin at the base of Huron Peak. Much of this basin was windblown to bare rock but there was a long flat section to cross on knee deep snow and we had stashed the snowshoes at treeline. Beyond that was the final ascent to the summit up the northwest slopes. This was mostly on bare rock with an occasional snowfield to cross over. We arrived at the summit around 1pm and I was shocked to see how good the view was. Certainly the best view of any Sawatch 14er and the summit area was really small. It was a pleasant surprise but too bad we couldn't stay longer. The winds were howling and we had to start down to ensure we didn't get benighted. So we retraced our steps down except this time we tried to stay on the snow as much as we could to made the hike down less painful. We made it down very quickly and plunge stepped all the way down back to the trailhead where we put the skis back on. The road was so flat though we had to skin back down which was annoying but we made it back to the car before dark and had some calorie intensive food in Leadville.
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