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With an early rise, Clay and I hit the road bound for the North Cottonwood Trailhead, not knowing what the weather would have in store for us. We started up the gentle trail at 6:40 a.m. Water levels were surging in the creek, as they were in the San Juans the previous weekend. That meant a lot of snow would likely be present. We reached the last bridge crossing the creek after about an hour (photo on right). This was much faster than the snowshoeing pace I had back in November on this trail. We didn't encounter any snow until we arrived in Horn Fork Basin. Slushy snow began to dominate the route in short order.
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A little way into the basin and we smelled buring wood. Turns out a pair of unprepared hikers had a fire going before their descent - quite distasteful and hard on the lungs. We began a Northeastern traverse to attain treeline, as the trail became non-existent, and a creekbed provided partial reprief from post-holing. Our direction is depicted in the photo on the left. After 30 minutes, relief was in sight and I checked our bearings for the accuracy of our route-finding. Everyting matched up on the topo, and the weather looked promising, so we began our ascent out of the final trees.
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Above us lay a long snowfield that would provide access to a reasonable insertion point on the West slope (photo on right). I didn't notice the trail that led all the way to the saddle that was a little bit further up from the snowfield traversing onto the convex part of the slope. The terrain was quite steep - much like the incline of the Mill Creek route up Sunshine Peak. Many vertical feet separated us from the saddle, and we slowly progressed toward our objective. Beginning as a grassy slope, the terrain soon gave way to loose scree, larger scree, and finally talus. About 3/4 of the way up the slope, we finally intersected the trail that had been to the North of us up to this point.
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The trail made things a little easier, and I was relieved upon reaching the saddle to see the incline let up towards Columbia (photo on left). There were a few showers off in the distance, and we appeared to have enough time to reach the summit and head down before weather was upon us. The temperature outside was quite warm, and no wind played well into our summit bid. A few moves on the West side of the cornices on the ridge allowed easy access to the peak. A few rest stops and we were on the summit at 11:30 a.m. Traveling a little over one mile per our was a tribute to the disadvantage bushwhacking through slushy snow below treeline can provide.
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Spending a little time on the summit was pleasant (one of the few times yet this year). We began our descent and arrived back at the saddle just as a nasty thunderstorm engulfed Mount Yale. A quick trot down the West slope deposited us back down at the snowfield and our our way to more post-holing adventure. It was a relief to reach the gentle dry trail once out of Horn Fork basin.
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