Meadow Mountain
December 18, 2004
For nine months now I've been an active (some might say overly active) member of SummitPost.org, a high-traffic site of mountaineers all over the world. As with any internet group like this, you get to "know" people without actually meeting them. Thus I jumped at a chance to accompany some of them on a casual winter hike to the summit of Meadow Mountain.
The timing could not have been better! I've spent the last three weekends doing small outdoor ventures at best with lots of Christmas shopping and other neccessary but uninspiring activity. Furthmore, work has gotten rather stressful lately and I had a lot of steam to burn off.
I rolled into Allenspark a little before 8am on a cold, breezy day. Ten minutes later, everyone else had arrived. The Fort Collins Contingent was composed of Ken, Tom, and Nelson. From Boulder were Georg, Fabio, Peter, and Filipo (on sabatical from Italy). Finally, Carissa arrived from Longmont making us an even nine. We caravanned a couple miles to the trailhead where various cars got stuck in the snow and others did not. Somehow, it's always the big, stompy trucks that get stuck while passenger cars are okay. Huh!
By 8:45 we were on the trail hiking the last snowy half-mile to the trailhead and chatting amiably. At the trailhead we donned snowshoes and started up a pleasant, wooded trail on hard-packed snow. Georg and I set a killer pace and soon left everyone behind. This was to be a theme throughout the day with Georg out front setting a fast pace and everyone else (myself included) struggling to keep up.
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| At the trailhead. Filipo, Tom, Nelson, Fabio, Peter, and Ken (l-r) | Climbing the steepest part of the snow bowl. |
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We emerged from the forest into a set of open glades. The fresh tracks ended somewhere in there and we started to find our own way up a steep bowl. The summer trail features many switchbacks up the bowl. Not hampered by such things as trails, we struck out straight up the hill reaching a slope of 30-degrees. I forged my own path for a bit discovering that the snow was significantly deep. Still, the sun was warm and I was sweating profusely.
Above the bowl we entered dense forest again and spent a time ambling through it in several groups. It would be hard to get lost here! The trees thinned out and were replaced by low willows which we dutifully bashed through emerging eventually on some hard-packed sastrugi. Meadow Mountain was visible to the right and the unnamed peak 11479 was to the left.
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| Fabio prepares to activate his hyperdrive while the rest of us give him some distance (photo by Peter Sanders). | The view from near the summit. Carissa, Fabio, Georg, and Peter (l-r). The mountains in the background are Saint Vrain (slopes), Ogallala, Elk Tooth, Copeland, and Isolation (also l-r). |
As soon as we reached the saddle, the snow ended and the views and wind began in earnest. Wow! Longs Peak, Wild Basin and the farthest north of the Indian Peaks reared their pointy heads. We stashed our snowshoes near a bush and weighted them down with stones to prevent them blowing away. At this point, Ken and Tom turned back citing pressing commitments back in the valley. Georg lead the remaining seven up half a mile of easy talus to the summit.
180 degrees of view from Meadow Mountain. Saint Vrain can be seen at the left. Copeland Mountain is the prominent one in the middle. Longs Peak and Mount Meeker dominate the view to the north.
I arrived second on the summit and beheld the meadow for which Meadow Mountain presumably gets it's name. Ahead of me stretched a couple acres of flat tundra with pockets of snow and stones. The summit itself as a bit hard to determine but we agreed that the small rock shelter was probably it. The sun was bright but the winds cut through at a great rate. Photos were taken, calories consumed, and moods lifted.
At 12:45, we departed and made our way back to the saddle. Snowshoes were put back on and we started the descent. I love striding through deep powder between trees more than most anything else and I was deleriously happy cutting my own trail while everyone else tramped along the beaten track. Emerging from the trees at the top of the bowl, I was surprised at how steep it looked. Picking a likely line, I surfed down hill on the tails of my snowshoes.
 Looking back up toward the summit from just above tree line. It was a day of high winds and interesting clouds. |
 Fabio and Nelson bring up the rear, striding over hard-packed sastrugi. |
Total distance ~7.5 miles and ~2900' of elevation gain in about six hours.
 The Wilderness Journal |  Neithernor |