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| Father Dyer Peak |
I wasn’t
able to make an ascent on Father Dyer last weekend, so this weekend I made a
return trip to the Crystal Basin to climb the East Ridge. Ryan was up for a
scramble so we made plans to attempt the Crystal Basin group of Father Dyer,
Crystal Peak and Peak 10. We had an
early departure from the Denver area and made our way to the Breckenridge area
by 7am.
From the
standard Spruce Creek TH (39.436909, -106.050611) we started making our
way to the Spruce Creek 4WD TH (39.428680, -106.069556). The gate for Crystal Road (39.435797,
-106.053966) was open for the first time this year, so we decided to give it a
shot. This road is pretty narrow and
steep, but it does go all the way to Lower Crystal Lake. After about a mile it was too much for my
Blazer, so I found a spot to park it in the trees and that would be our trailhead
for the day. If I were to come back I
would just drive to the Spruce Creek 4WD TH and start from there. The Crystal Road is pretty bad in the steeper
sections.
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| False Summit of Father Dyer |
By 7:30 a.m.
my heels were all taped up and we were heading up the road. From our start the road was pretty steep, so
we both got the blood moving pretty fast. About a mile from the start we
reached tree line at around 11,300 feet.
We continued up the road to Lower Crystal Lake at around 12,000 feet. There was one creek crossing that was still a
little bit challenging, but we were able to cross without getting too wet.
It took us
about an hour to make our way to Lower Crystal Lake. Here there is a split (39.436016,
-106.088639)– if you take the road to the right that is the route directly to
Crystal Peak, if you take the old mining road to the left that heads to the
East Ridge of Father Dyer. So, go to
the left and follow the road till it makes a bend (39.433191, -106.090134) to
the east onto the rock glacier. From
here it is a cross-country route with some nice scrambling to the summit of
Father Dyer.
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| Ryan Making His Way Up The East Ridge |
Follow the
edge of the rock glacier till there is a nice opening heading up the slope to the
west. After making your way through some
large rock outcroppings the terrain turns more to grass and levels out for a
bit. You will soon find yourself at the
base of the rocky East Ridge and this is where the scrambling starts. We took a long break here in order to fuel up
for the climbing ahead of us. This route
stays in the lower class 3 level and would be a great place to introduce new
climbers to some solid rock.
We had a
goal of summiting at 10am, which would have us climbing at about 1,000ft and
hour. This was a high expectation
considering today was Ryan’s first day at high elevation, and we both were
taking our time checking out the cool rocks along the route. There was more than one occasion where we had
to stop and rock hound the pegmatite veins.
We were pulling terminated crystals out of veins and on the
surface. Soon I found my pack was loaded
with minerals and we were still on the ascent.
If I grab rocks or minerals I like to usually do it after peaking, but
these were just too beautiful to leave behind.
I think both of us will be back just to rock hound the area at a later
date.
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| Ryan Seems To Be Having Fun |
Getting back
to the scramble... We stayed true to the
ridge for the most part. There were a
few ledges and narrow sections with moderate exposure that required some attention,
but nothing that a rookie couldn’t handle.
I would say the crux would have been climbing up and over one of the
notches mid-ridge, but overall it was very basic class 3 climbing. As you follow the rest of the route, it leads
you to the large false summit that was visible earlier from Lower Crystal Lake. As you are climbing the ridge and glance to
the south there is a large arête, and that is the true summit of Father
Dyer. From the false summit it is a
rocky ridge walk to the true summit of just a few hundred yards. On the summit there is a plaque commemorating
the 100th anniversary of Father Dyer of the United Methodist Church.
The view of
Pacific is well worth the climb alone.
It is a very impressive looking mountain that needs to be inspected in
the near future. We took a short
breather, and Ryan made friends with a couple of pikas. Soon we were off on the ridge towards
Crystal. From Father Dyer it is less
than a mile to Crystal. The ridge is
covered in large boulders which made the moving slow. It took us a little over an hour to go from
summit to summit. As we were making our
way we monitored the weather to the south.
There was a good amount of precipitation coming down on Elbert. We got a few graupel pellets on us, but
nothing more than that. The weather
didn’t look too promising so we decided to skip Peak 10 today. I was up on Crystal and Peak 10 last week so
it didn’t bother me too much.
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| Pacific Peak |
We took a
few minutes on Crystal’s summit. I took
the tape off my feet. I think my boots
are finally broken in so I can forego the tape from here on out. We started down to the saddle between Crystal
and Peak 10 around 12:30 pm. It was a
little rough making our way through the boulders but once on the saddle the
terrain eased up a bit. Another 600 foot
drop had us on the trail that ends at Upper Crystal Lake. We followed the trail till it started
switchbacks then made our way cross country till connecting with the Wheeler
Trail. This saved us some mileage from
following the road all the way down and was more interesting in the open
country.
Once on the
Wheeler Trail we followed it about half mile till meeting up with the Crystal
Lake Road. We were pretty much home free
now with less than a mile down the road to the truck. Today was a great climb;
one of my favorites in Colorado so far. I am still hoping to get in Pacific,
Atlantic, Fletcher, Drift and North Star this summer. The season is going well so far, and I hope
to see some of you on the mountains.
Cheers!
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| GPS Track |
Date: July 11,
2015
TH
Elevation: 10,747 feet
Father Dyer
Summit: 13,596 feet
Crystal
Peak: 13,822 feet
Total
Elevation Gain: 3,200 feet
Distance:
7.31 miles
Moving Time:
5hrs
Stopped
Time: 2hrs 15min
Climbing Partner:
Ryan
Photo Album: Father Dyer & Crystal Peak
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