Colorado Summits: Estes Cone, 11,006′ (Winter)

Longs Peak from Estes Cone, #5. Estes Cone, Colorado, 2015

What a great day to herald in the new year–a snowshoe climb of Estes Cone, a not-so-entirely-insignificant bump just northeast of a much more famous bump–Longs Peak.

With temps at around 25 degrees, good snow coverage, and the wind, thankfully, at zero knots (making it almost T-shirt weather!), I set out from the Longs Peak Trailhead at around 11a.m. A number of folks who had gone before had already made a pretty good trench along the path, so breaking trail wasn’t really necessary–I thank you! In fact, microspikes might have been a better choice up until Moore Park, just before the final steep ascent of the Cone.

With no wind, and tremendous views of Longs, the other high peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, and Twin Sisters, I lingered for almost two hours on the summit, scrambling carefully around the snow-covered boulders with tripod in hand.

Some highlights:

–The trail is just over six miles round trip and involves a total of some 2,000′ vertical feet of climbing. Unfortunately for your lungs and legs, the trail drops quite a bit from Eugenia Mine down to Moore Park before heading steeply up again to the Cone itself. This is a downhill you get to ascend, of course, on the return trip. Lucky you.

–The last 0.7 mile stretch to the summit is very strenuous. I have no idea if the snowshoe track followed the summer trail or not, but it seemed interminably steep.

–The trail deposited me at a cleft in the rocky summit ridge. From there, it is a fun scramble of a few minutes to reach the true summit which is maybe 20-30 feet higher and a hundred yards away. Today, with everything covered in snow, the scramble took a bit longer and required a lot of probing with the feet before putting my weight on the underlying rocks.

–For photographers, your view of Longs Peak’s famous “Diamond” is partially obscured by Mount Lady Washington, a 13er. If you are wanting better overall images of Longs and its precipices, I would recommend the slightly longer trek to the summit of Twin Sisters instead. Also, during winter afternoons on Estes Cone, you will also be shooting directly into the sun as you aim at Longs–consider an early morning ascent to avoid this. (And consult The Photographer’s Ephemeris!)

–I wore snowshoes all the way up to the rocks on the summit ridge. However, because the track was reasonably well packed by then, I chose to wear microspikes for the entire return trip. I postholed to the ankles and knees fairly often on the steep descent off of the Cone, but the maneuverability I had through the trees and around obstacles was still worth it. Once down to Moore Park, the path was solid and the spikes were much faster than the bulky Grizzly Adams shoes.

A few selected images…

The view looking east-southeast toward Boulder and the Plains. Twin Sisters are the two high points to the left (the highest of the two is actually the righthand one). Note the obvious rockslide on the far left–this was a result of super-saturation of the soil during the September 2013 floods:

Twin Sisters from Estes Cone, #1. Estes Cone, Colorado, 2015

Note how the view of the Diamond is somewhat blocked by Mt. Lady Washington. Storm clouds are starting to build and it looks like the winds are picking up at 14,000′: