A Windy Day on Quandary Peak

May 24, 2010 by Collin Tilbe 1 Comment

Quandary from the north

Yesterday Dave Gardner and I set out to ski the east ridge of Quandary Peak.  Still a little skiddish from last week’s incident, I was looking for an easy but fun tour while Dave was itching to bag his first 14er descent.

Although Quandary is a 14er (14,265′) the approach is only 2.5 miles to the summit.  However, in that 2.5 miles one must ascend almost 3,500 ft of vertical.  This makes Quandary a popular ascent but also gets some people in trouble since “easy” is a relative term!

Dave and I started our ascent at 8:50am.  We were shooting to summit by noon, but with the weather forecasting 30-40mph winds with gusts up to 60 (at 12,000 ft) we really didn’t know what we would find.  On our way up we encounterd several hikers who told us to “hold onto our hats” because it was “super windy up there!”  Dave asked me if I really thought it was as windy as they were saying, I just shrugged and said we would find out.

As we ascended out of tree line to the first steep climb we encountered yet another group of skiers who said they had turned back because of the wind.  They said the wind hadn’t allowed the snow to soften either, so the skiing was better down here.  I told Dave I wasn’t turning back because of bad skiing, I wanted a summit.  Dave agreed, and followed with a steady pace.

After the first steep climb, the wind picked up after this

As we rounded the first climb to about 12,500 the wind really began to blow.  For the most part it was coming out of the southwest, right through a natural wind tunnel formed by Quandary’s south face.  People were turning back in droves from this part of the climb, and I could only make out 2 dots on the east ridge heading for the summit.  Although the wind was annoying, I didn’t feel we were in any danger so I donned my Furio jacket and we pressed on.

Traversing the ridge, the wind was intense from here on out

Eventually we reached the upper portion of the climb where we would traverse the east ridge to the summit.  We were standing at about 13,000ft, which meant we had another 1000 vertical to go.  As we gained the ridge the wind intensified greatly.  It wasn’t just blowing, but was swirling which would knock us off balance.  It was getting pretty hairy, but I figured if we could get out of this section we would be more sheltered.

Dave before the final push with Quandary looming large

We began climbing the final pitch and Quandary was not happy with our persistence.  I was having Dave lead the way so as not to leave him behind.  We were both getting buffeted pretty hard and the wind was blowing tiny ice crystals into our faces which hurt like hell. By this point I just wanted to get to the top, transition and get the hell off the mountain!

Dave yelled at me through the wind to go on ahead.  I told him I would summit and meet him wherever he was down below.  I took off up the ridge and was having a really difficult time skinning.  The wind was literally blowing my skis sideways so I couldn’t get any purchase.  I decided to take a lower angle approach and switchback a bit and that did the trick.   In what seemed like a sprint I gained the last 500 ft in personal best time and summited at 12:15pm.  I took a few photos and made the quickest transition of my life – stuffing my skins into my jacket – and began my descent.  As I skied down the spine of the ridge, I noticed Dave was almost to the top!  So I waited for him to summit and we made the descent together.

Dave Approaches the summit

Dave showing the east face how it’s done

The snow up top was very hard packed and wind blown.  We decided to hug the ridge far skiers right so we could easily retrace the ascent route.  I also felt this would be the safest route, again a little skiddish from last week.  As we descended the snow changed abrublty to silky corn and made for some incredible turns.  We descended the first 1000 ft splendidly and after a little traverse we ran into a guy who had hurt his knee on the ascent.  His group was waiting for a rescue team and all I could think was “man, glad that’s not me.”  We began the 2nd 1000 ft. descent after chatting with a couple of skiers on their way up.

It was an absolute joy to ski these open faces with wonderful corn snow.  The descent seemed to go on forever and we finally made it back to the tree line.  After a quick lunch we made the 30 minute hike out and were on our way back to Denver.  Despite the wind we had a great day and were certainly glad we decided to push for the summit.  Until next time.