Fletcher Mountain - 13,951 ft
Date: 7-2-2005
Climbers: George Barnes & Kai Martin
Route: Northwest Face, Class 3
RT distance: 2.8 miles
Elevation gain: 2,391 feet
RT time: 3 hours 20 minutes
Time to summit: 1 hour 50 minutes
Time on summit: 10 minutes
Time to trailhead: 1 hour 20 minutes
Coordinates of summit: 39° 24.20'N, 106° 7.73'W
USGS Quadrangle: Copper Mountain
Trip Report:
Kai had driven out from Iowa only the day before, so we thought we should try to get him acclimated before our attempt on Elbert. We planned to drive up Mayflower Gulch road off CO 91 and do a little easy hiking at 12,000 feet. After 4-wheeling up the road in my Renegade, we decided that Fletcher Mountain (13,951 ft), looked awfully close, and despite our late hour (5 PM) we'd give it a go.
The weather had cleared up and looked fine as far as we could see, so I didn't feel too guilty about climbing this late in the day. To help Kai move faster I offered to wear the only pack, and load it up with gear for both of us.
Supposedly this route makes a great spring snow climb, but we were too late in the season for good snow. Consequently, we got a lesson in the endearing qualities of choss as we picked our way up the class 3 route.
Once we gained the Fletcher-Drift saddle, the route became much easier and by 6:50 PM we made the summit. We didn't dawdle on the summit, taking only enough time to sign the register and pick out the neighboring peaks. On the way down it was tempting to run over to Drift Peak (13,900) however the connecting ridge looks "interesting" and we only had a couple hours of daylight left. We knew that descending the loose rock of our ascent route would probably take almost as long as our ascent, so we opted to go straight down.
About a fourth of the way down our descent I walked over to the remaining snow fields to check out the snow conditions. The snow was soft enough to allow a controlled glissade, so we cut significant time off our descent. By 8:20 we reached the Jeep and headed for the Mt. Elbert trailhead.
