Hikers: Pat
Weather: 50s-60s, clear
Miles: 5.6
Elevation Gain: 2,600 ft
Duration: 4.5 hrs
One of the things I was looking forward to on our Colorado vacation was climbing a 14er and if possible doing a class III route. After finishing our backpacking trip, Jodie was feeling like relaxing, but she was ok with me doing a 14er on my own. The West Ridge on Quandary seemed to be a relatively short route, but also class III, so I was excited to give it a try. It also worked out well because it’s near Breckenridge, which would be a sizeable town to entertain Jodie while I was hiking.
I ended up getting up really early and was at the trailhead at 6:00am. I followed the trail along Blue Lake and quickly reached a point where the trail appeared to fork. I didn’t think the trail climbed so quickly, so I took the branch closer to the lake. Apparently, that wasn’t the correct choice, as the trail became less defined. I reached a talus section near a stream coming down from the basin and decided to climb the talus. I connected back to the real trail after a short climb. The trail was pretty well defined through the basin and generally stayed close to the stream. At the head of the basin, I followed a faint trail up through the talus on the right of the stream and eventually climbed up the middle of the basin to the ridge.
The West Ridge of Quandary begins with a traverse across the steep south side of the ridge. Soon, the route pops over to the north side and is a fairly easy climb along the ridge. Right before the summit, the ridge gets very sharp and there are a series of towers that need to be negotiated. I scrambled over and around a few towers before reaching one that didn’t appear to have an easy way around. I tried going to the left, the right, and straight over the tower, but they all looked pretty difficult. Since I was alone and quite far from the trailhead, with fairly difficult terrain between myself and the car, I decided to turn around rather than continuing on. I knew the summit was only a short distance away, but I also knew that it would be there another day, and I’d had fun so far.
The descent went fairly quickly, especially once I got off the ridge. I was back at the car by 10:30am. This was my first experience on a class III route, so I’m not sure if I just didn’t find the easiest route, or if class III is really harder than I thought.
