Otis Peak

July 28th, 2008

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Well, this was the day of the RMNP Forum group hike. We enjoyed meeting many of the forum crowd at the picnic the night before, and we were looking forward to hiking with a few of them on CCY. Unfortunately, Old Fall River Road was closed when we arrived. The group discussed what to do, and ultimately split in two. Sandy, Ali, and I decided to follow Igloo Ed over to the Bear Lake TH, and climb Otis Peak. The rest of the crew headed to Milner Pass to hike up Mt Ida.

I'm not sure what time we started off from the Bear Lake TH, but it was probably a little before 7:00am. Ed offered to lead us on an off-trail route to the base of Otis, and that sounded good to the three of us. The beginning of the route used the trial to Nymph Lake. Shortly before reaching the lake, we turned off the trail, and headed into the woods. It was actually fairly easy going. A worn trail wasn't always visible to me, but there was essentially zero bushwhacking. My first photo of the slabs at the base of Otis' north east slope was taken at 7:54am. So it took roughly an hour to reach Otis from the TH. After a short break, we skirted the slabs to the northwest (right). In just a few minutes we were able to start our ascent up onto the ridge.

The slope we climbed juts out from the end of the east ridge in a northeasterly direction. On our first climb of Otis, last year, we hiked to Lake Haiyaha first. Then we bushwhacked to the northwest side of the that slope. It was an okay route, but it included a very steep section that was quite loose. The rest was talus. Ed's route from the main trail led us to a point closer to the northeast end of the slope. It was a much better starting point for the ascent. We by passed one minor snowfield and climbed on a mix of tundra and talus. We stopped for a break, once we reached to top of the ridge, at about 9:30am. From that point onward, Ali and Sandy set a faster pace, and they ended up hiking separately for the rest of the day.

As Ed and I climbed, our route offered almost continuous views from Thatchtop and Longs around to Powell and Taylor Peaks. There was an especially good view of Timberline Falls and Glass Lake, which I'm not sure if I noticed last year. It was almost 11:30am when the two of us reached the summit. Sandy and Ali had left already, and were down in the saddle between Hallet and Otis. They could see us, but we couldn't see them. They had reached the summit at about 10:30am, about an hour ahead of us. You can tell from my summit pictures, that bad weather was moving in. And that prompted Ali and Sandy to press on directly to Flattop, and down to Bear Lake. Ed and I ate lunch on the summit, and he talked me into descending via Andrews Glacier. As it turned out, that was a good choice. The weather seemed to be forming ahead of us, and our slower pace kept us behind anything significant. Meanwhile, Sandy and Ali had cold rain, wind, and hail as they headed down the above-treeline portion of Flattop. It only sprinkled on Ed and me a couple of times for a few minutes.

Prior to this, I'd only been on Andrews Glacier once. And that was to go up, not down. The conditions were probably similar, but I was fairly uncomfortable that time. The top of the glacier is quite flat. As Ed led the way across that part, he gave me some quick snow hiking lessons. He continued to do so throughout the descent. Basically, we kind of did cross-country skiing down the glacier. The combination of Ed's coaching and the chance to get a feel for the snow at the top eliminated any fears I had of sliding down, out of control, into an icy Andrews Tarn at the bottom. It took 20 minutes, including all the lessons, to make the descent. I'm sure my next time down will be a little quicker. I do recommend trekking poles for balance if you do the boot skiing method. Of course, if you slide down on a plastic bag or something, you won't need those. But after watching Ed, I'd say boot skiing is likely just as quick, and definitely more controlled.

The trail immediately below Andrews Tarn is very steep. Fortunately, the snowfield that regularly exists below the tarn had receded completely from the trail, but just barely. The trail made a switchback right at the edge of the snow. I think a snow covered trail in such a steep area would have been problematic. About half way down to the woods below, Ed looked back and spotted some climbers descending the snow in The Gash. I think we watched 3 of them take their turn at glissading down. Each one lost control briefly, at some point, but managed to recover. I assume they all made it down safely, as I never saw any related RMNP news. We turned off on the Andrews Creek campground trail, and then went off-trail completely, emerging near the east end of The Loch. From there, we followed the trail only briefly, turning off to the north before passing the west glacial knob. We passed just to the west of the knob, and I took a couple of photos of the unnamed lake below its west slope. Eventually we connected up with the route we took in the morning, and followed it back to the Bear Lake TH. We finished up at 4:30pm, about 3 hours after Sandy and Ali.

Hike Stats:

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