| Leave Harvard There are two important
things to know about this traverse. The first is that you
should voluntarily shed your altitude when descending on the
northeast side of Point 13,516. It is tempting to try to
retain as much altitude as possible while circling it, but the
entire ridgeline comes to an abrupt cliff-strewn end all along
the south side. If you go this route, you will add over a
half hour of scrambling down a steep, scree-filled couloir and
then climbing over large, loose boulders. If, from the
first, you resign yourself to descending to the valley floor
(roughly to timberline), you will enjoy
gentle, grassy slopes
the whole way.
The second thing to know is that the trail designation on
Roach's map for the climb back out of the valley to Columbia is inaccurate; the route shown is virtually
impassible. Roach's description in the text is okay, but instead
of staying at the foot of the cliffs as the map indicates, climb
up the grassy patches to the ridge further east. You can
then circle around the southeast side of the basin below the
summit, and at the point at which the ridge steepens for the
final ascent, traverse south and use the Three Elk Creek trail
to achieve the summit. Done this way, the climb is grassy
the whole way, and the grades are manageable. |
