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Jacque Peak was my first winter climb of 1999. I don't know if I should
count this as a winter trip because the weather was so fabulous. Saturday, February 13th,
was perfectly clear, very still, sunny, and warm. This was by far the best weather I've
had on a winter trip. I've always had some combination of bitter cold, wind, and clouds.
Not on this day. It was really lucky too because Jacque Peak has one of the best views in
the state. It stands alone north of the Gore Range and west of the Ten Mile Range and has
unobstructed views in every direction. This trip was with the Colorado Mountain Club.
The only time I go on trips with the club is during the winter for safety reasons. I
normally enjoy planning and leading my own hikes. We arrived at the trailhead around 8:45
and put our snowshoes on and headed up. |
| (Above) This picture is looking back on the Ten Mile Range. The
prominent pointed peak is Pacific Peak.We had a fairly large group of eleven people. We
didn't head up Tucker Gulch, but rather a smaller gulch north of Tucker that lead directly
to Tucker Mountain. Tucker Mountain borders the back bowls of Copper Mountain Ski Area.
There's a shelter up here that serves as a good place to take a break. We moved at a slow
pace up the gulch to Tucker Mountain and arrived there at around noon. At this pace, I
didn't think we'd have time to make it to the top. However, we really picked up the pace
for the rest of the trip and pretty much hiked non-stop to the summit. |
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(Left) Here's the view of Jacque Peak from the summit of Tucker Mountain.
Our route ascended the lefthand ridge in the picture. From the shelter, the ridge looked
really steep but I realized that we were viewing it on end and in reality, it was quite
easy. We hiked up and down along the summits of Tucker Mountain until we got below Jacque
Peak. Then we headed up the rocky slopes to the ridge. |
| (Right) Here I am standing on the wide ridge. As you can see, the day was
perfect. I didn't even have to cover my head up until we got on the summit. The summit
indeed was a rather chilly place. Some people in our group started getting cold toes.
Anyway, the ridge was easy to ascend. At one point the wind had formed a nice barn-roof
effect on the ridge that we had to walk along. There was one false summit unfortunately,
but the true summit lay only a couple of hundred feet beyond it. |
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(Left) Here's our group on the summit. We had perfect views. To the north
was the Gore Range. To the east, we had perfect and up-close views of the Ten Mile Range.
To the south and west lay the long chain of the Sawatch Range. We stayed on top for about 30 minutes then headed back down. We were able to
glissade down the gulch from Tucker Mountain. It wasn't the best glissade but it saved us
some time. On the way down, I didn't bother putting on my snowshoes again. I just followed
a packed snowmobile trail back to the cars. |