WOOLSEY - SOUTH RIDGE / AUG 2019

Not completely sure how I happened upon this peak. I'd always known of Cloud Peak, but in fact I knew next to nothing about it. I hadn't been to the Rockies in 10 years, so deciding to remedy that I made a slight detour north to the Bighorns on my way to California in Sept 2018. Without much of a plan I did a one day recee to the saddle just past Mistymoon Lake. That appeared to be that until months later, back home, I happened upon a TR of Woolsey @ 13ergirl.com. Now here was something that captured my attention. The peak, the route and the adventure these 2 women had fired up a desire to go do this route the next summer (2019). I felt pretty confident I could do it alone.

Coming from NH it's always wise to gather momentum for altitude by doing some warm ups. Thus as usual, I tend to start with Medicine Bow Peak outside of Laramie. By the summer of 2019 I'd also discovered a number of routes I wanted to do in the Indian Peaks Wilderness (CO). The easiest one to do as a day climb is the Kasparov Traverse to Apache, which for me was a perfect fit as it would involve a long day and soloing 5th class terrain. The 22nd of August was a really nice day and the traverse was fun. By the 26th I was on the trail to Wilderness Basin in the Bighorns with 5 days of food, a bit of gear and a 70m 7.9 rope. One way or another I would need the rope to get down. Whether I'd use it on the climb, well, we'd just wait and see.

It's not unusual to find a better way into a place on your way out of that place. Wilderness Basin is a case in point. I gather other folks have made the same mistake of turning up hill too early rather than taking a low rising traverse into the main drainage out of the basin. The mistake was both scenic and easy travel, just a bit more work going higher than one needs to. That being said, you get a great view up the basin before dropping down to the stream where the big view disappears. Took about 8 hours to get to 'Middle Cloud Peak Lake'. Forecast was good and the afternoon clouds began to dissipate right on schedule.Next morning started off grey but cleared out by 11am. I stopped short of the last lake seeing that there was no need to hump my load up that final scree pile as I was close enough and the setting was quite nice right where I was.

Got going around 5am and arrived at the icy hard snowpatch blocking entry to the access gully about 90 minutes later. A short detour around to the right by way of the gully that leads to the Gargoyle-Innominate Col took care of the issue and shortly there after I arrived in the sunshine at the top of the approach gully by 7:45am.

The only real route finding issue of the day is what confronts you straight away. The description I had was confusing, but the obvious notch above was the only real way to get started. My mistake was not coming right back into the sunshine after stepping thru to the cold side of the notch. Instead I continued around onto the north side of the ridge where, while I knew I was off-route, the terrain did seem to offer a solution. It wasn't as straightforward as I had hoped for, and there was one dicey mantle, but in the end I came back up onto the ridge and the much appreciated warmth of the sun at the end of what my beta called P2.

From there the route continues in a easy to follow fashion: at first along the airy backbone of the ridge, then a low angle 4th class section until you finally arrive at the headwall and the famous ramp pitch. I hadn't given a thought to pitching out any of the climb until this point. Even still halfway up the ramp a step right and then back left gets past the only thought provoking move on the ramp. Arriving at the end of the ramp the final obstacle consists of a short wall of some 10-12 feet. I didn't like the look of it until I went as far right as possible into a wee little chimney where the moves up, out and over the steepness were made easy by solid jugs. To make matters easier, I hauled my pack, which I had actually done a couple of times already.

The dramatic summit ridge makes for a fine finish to this amazing route in what should probably be a much harder environment. The view over to the Innominate from here, in particular it's north face is just wow! Getting down was not as bad or as tricky as I had anticipated. There are lots of rap anchors going down the northwest ridge. The wind was the issue I was worried about. But careful pulling on each of the 4 raps got me safely down to the scree without incident. From there the walk back to camp was pleasant and the scree was not nearly as unpleasant as it had been on Apache the week before, or Emerson last year.

The weather which was holding perfect made for a enjoyable walk out the next day. I'd figured to do it in two days, but by getting the crossover from the drainage to the small lake near the Cloud Peak high camp done without an epic I was back at Mistymoon Lake with more than enough time to go for it. Truck camped on the access road that night which was a good thing as it rained pretty hard for a while, before clearing off at dawn.