Colonial Peak and Paul Bunyan's Stump
Colonial Peak (7771')
Paul Bunyan's Stump (7480'+)
Day 1: After working Friday morning, Eileen and I left town at noon and headed for the Pyramid Lake Trailhead on Hwy 20. We hiked past the lake and continued up Pyramid Ridge on a well-trodden climber's path. Point 4555 provided us with a fine campsite (4.6 hours from TH) for the next two nights.
This was the quasi-annual outing for my venerable 1978 Omnipotent. I pitched the tent with her front doorway squared up to Colonial Peak's amazing north face. Now in her golden years, she has gotten mighty particular about her campsites, but I think we did her proud here.
Evening view from our camp at 4555
Day 2: Morning sun brought a soft glow to Davis Peak, Colonial Peak, and other nearby mountains. We were expecting a long, warm, sunny day for climbing, but it didn't quite turn out that way.
Davis Peak from our camp at 4555
Morning view from our camp at 4555
We headed up Pyramid Ridge, generally following the crestline over a series of cliff bands and snowy benches. Our route-finding was a bit off in places, so this part of the trip took longer than it should have to reach the ridge's terminus below Pyramid Peak. Somewhere around mid-morning, we left the ridge and traversed steep snow over to the Colonial Glacier.
Traversing from Pyramid Ridge to Colonial Glacier
From the glacier gap, we booted up pleasantly firm snowslopes toward Colonial Peak. A strong, frigid, northerly wind accompanied us all the way up the mountain---and stayed with us the entire rest of the day.
Heading toward Colonial Peak
Climbing above the Colonial Glacier
Paul Bunyan's Stump, Pinnacle Peak, and Pyramid Peak enticed us from across the glacial cirque. We hoped to climb at least one of these alpine crags today.
Paul Bunyan's Stump, Pinnacle Peak, and Pyramid Peak
Somewhat inadvertently, we first topped out on Colonial Peak's slightly lower southwest summit before traversing over to the northeast (true) summit. All of our little route-finding errors throughout the day had added up to a much longer ascent than expected (7.7 hours from camp). However, this didn't prevent us from enjoying the incredible summit views.
Eileen on Colonial Peak summit
Snowfield Peak and Neve Glacier from Colonial Peak
Northern view from Colonial Peak
We left Colonial Peak at 3:00pm and descended to the glacial cirque, then headed up to the snow saddle at the southern base of Paul Bunyan's Stump. Easy heather, talus, and scree led us up toward the towering summit rocks. We hoped that there was a reasonably simple route through the steepness ahead. Did I mention that I'd lost my maps and route beta on the Colonial Glacier?
Scrambling toward Paul Bunyan's Stump
Naturally, a dense fog closed in on us just as we reached the start of the steep and serious scrambling. I had doubts about navigating in this fog, but Eileen switched over to I.F.R. mode and managed to find a way to the narrow summit ridge. We roped up for one short but severely exposed Class 3 rock pitch to the summit.
Eileen belaying on summit ridge of Paul Bunyan's Stump
It was 6:25pm when we topped out. This was distressingly late, even by our time-distorted standards! Clearly, we had a headlamp descent in our immediate future. On a positive note, the fog started to thin as we descended, creating some remarkable visual effects.
Foggy view from Paul Bunyan's Stump
We dropped to the glacier and retraced our traverse route over to Pyramid Ridge, then headed down. A four-tent camp had been cut into the lee of the ridge, but there was no sign of activity as we passed by. Their early bedtime and well-coiled ropes hanging on well-positioned ice axes indicated a regimented group.
Our remaining descent was dark but mostly uneventful, except for one rappel over a rock face and deep moat that swallowed one of my trekking poles. We stumbled into camp at 11:40pm to round out a memorable 15.6-hour day.
Day 3: We broke camp and hiked out, reaching the car shortly before noon (3.8 hours from camp).
