With the end of the winter climbing season, I decided to turn my focus back to 13ers. The centennial California Peak seemed like a good spring choice with easy access and an avalanche safe route. After rounding up a couple of climbing friends we all met at the Zapata Falls trailhead near The Great Sand Dunes National Park. We chose this trailhead because we knew the access road would be dry. The standard route is from the Huerfano Valley side, and we figured the road to that trailhead would be blocked several miles short of the trailhead.

Day: March 24th, 2020

Peaks: California Peak, Pt 13577, Pt 13660 A

Trailhead: Zapata Falls

Route: West Ridge

Mileage/Vertical Gain: 12.35 miles/ 5718 feet

After a couple of hours of truck sleep my 2 climbing partners (Annie and Keyton) and I were on the Zapata Lake trail just before 4 am. The trail was mostly dry at first before slowly transitioning into all snow with a solid boot pack. A couple of miles into the climb we passed the California Gulch and turned west on the North Fork South Zapata Creek trail. The trail wasn't visible because of snow, but we knew it was here. We bushwacked west and a short distance later we cut left up an embankment to gain the lower ridge of California. The North Fork South Zapata Creek trail veered to the right up the drainage. Next, we came to a steep headwall which led to a narrow non-technical ridge.

Knee deep postholes started to become more common so Keyton and I donned our snowshoes while Annie soldiered on without (having left hers in the car?). We eventually popped out of the trees to the wide-open west slopes of California.

We worked our way up the slope hitting rock bands and grass patches whenever possible to help Annie out. I'm pretty sure she regretted not bringing snowshoes.

About halfway up this section, the ridge mellowed out into a flattish area with more deep snow to cross. To this point, the climbing had not been very steep. Looking ahead from here we could see that was going to change.

The rest of the way was much steeper (but not too bad) and snowshoes were not necessarily needed. I kept mine on though as the traction was useful.

We found staying as far right as possible kept us out of talus and on firm snow. It was from here that we saw the Blanca mastiff with Ellingwood and Little Bear for the first time and were blown away. This amazing view would be in our sights for the rest of the day.

Soon after we were at the false summit with just a short jaunt remaining to the summit of California Peak. From the smallish snow-covered summit the views were beyond amazing in every direction. We now could also clearly see the rest of our route to Pt 13577 and the bicentennial Pt 13660 A.

And that was that! California was done without too much effort, and it was now time to turn south and head for a couple unnamed but ranked 13ers. Point 13577 was our next objective and can be seen in the photo above as the second bump coming from California. We got tired of referring to these peaks as numbers so we named them. Pt 13577 we called "Island Peak".

Following the initial steep drop down Californias southeastern ridge, there was a small plateau. Next, a steep snow slope with an option to stay in rocks led us to the saddle with Pt 13400.

At the Pt 13400 saddle we opted to not climb the point, but to sidehill it instead. This point was neither a ranked nor unranked 13er, so saving our energy and skipping it seemed like the best option. Sidehilling over talus was a little tedious but we were able to quickly make our way to the saddle with "Island Peak".

From the saddle, it was an easy talus climb to the summit of "Island Peak". The views from the summit were even more magnificent than from California with the Blanca Mastiff on the right and Lindsey on the left. We were mesmerized by the enormous cliffs below Ellingwood and Blanca and the frozen Lily Lake.

After a short rest while soaking in the amazing scenery we turned west and started towards our last peak, Pt 13660 A. This peak we dubbed "Little Elly ". We knew from research that the West Ridge to "Little Elly" went class 3 and would be the most challenging peak of the day.

It didn't take long to descend the talus slope down "Island Peak" to reach the small adjoining saddle. Here we contemplated putting crampons on, but decided against it and headed up.

The snow was solid so we walked on it as much as possible. At about the 3/4 mark we came to a snow gully and crossed it very gingerly using axes for support.

After the gully crossing the climbing got a bit more difficult with a couple of short class 3 sections. The rock was good and solid though so there was nothing to difficult. There were definitely a few spots where slipping on the snow-covered rocks would not have been good.

Once on the summit of "Little Elly" we were again greeted with a stunning panorama. Little Bear really looked impressive from here, and the ridge to Ellingwood Point looked interesting albeit very difficult.

Although it would have been easy we didn't linger long. We all knew this was only the halfway point and we headed back down "Little Elly" towards "Island Peak".

At the saddle with "Island Peak" we decided not re-summit. Instead, we sidehilled all the way back to the slopes of California which we then summited for the second time.

Besides lots of postholing in the soft snow, the return trip to the Zapata Falls trailhead was uneventful.