Starting out, the plan was to climb Horseshoe Mtn, a Centennial, which means it's one of Colorado's 100 highest peaks. (13,898 feet ranked #72). But I foolishly left my snowshoes in the Jeep because I read a condition report for nearby Mt Sherman the day before where it was reported that snowshoes were not necessary due to there being an impressive bootpack on that route. Since I hate carrying snowshoes I assumed that a good bootpack would also be on Horseshoe Mountain because, surely, people climbed that one too over the weekend. Well they didn't.
This being still the winter season in the high country, the road to the trailhead was still snowed in and I had to park lower and hoof it about 2.5 miles to the normal trailhead. Walking up the road with just my boots, the views of Horseshoe Mtn were beautiful.
That's the old Leavick Mine site.
So I get to the turnoff for Horseshoe and I notice that there are no bootprints in the snow. None! I walked a way along the route and the snow was firm so not having snowshoes shouldn't be an issue. Except that the route from there is 4 miles and since the forecast was for temps in the 30's and sunshine, the snow would be mushy later in the day on the return trip. Mushy snow would mean snowshoes are necessary. Now what? Then it was decided, since the condition report on Sherman didn't require snowshoes, that Mt. Sherman was the new goal for the day. About a mile further up the road we get to Mt. Sherman's summer trailhead, where the summit comes into view.
After climbing and climbing through snow, through rocks, and through more snow, here's the view looking down toward the summer trailhead which is about where the trees end.
But here is where things changed. I am still new to this winter climbing thing, and that inexperience turned to paranoia when I saw this slope which needed to be crossed to get to the summit ridge. The Caltopo app told me that the slope was less than 27 degrees which makes it safe to cross without triggering a deadly avalanche. But not far across the slope I noticed a bunch of cracks in the snow which freaked me out. Avalanche science says that a slope will not slide unless it's 30 degrees or more, but the aforementioned paranoia won out, and that was that. The ascent was over.
The following are a few pictures of some of the many mine ruins along the route.
Some wisenheimer put up a fake sign. It was on-route so it caught my eye.