Pikes Peak on Thanksgiving Weekend Plans

I have been making plans to do an overnight early winter climb over the long thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, I will not be able to do a overnight venture. Friday is looking like time with the kiddos, so it leaves saturday as the only day available to climb. Pikes Peak is an obvious objective, mainly due to it's proximity to my house. I met someone on 14ers.com forum that shares my enthusiasm for mountaineering in Colorado. If the weather is not too terribly bad, then it may be all systems go. We are expecting a major storm system to move into the area on thanksgiving day and last until saturday.

While chatting with Geof, it appears that a line up one of the many snow routes in the Glen Cove area of Pikes Peak might be a good choice. There should not be much snow up there now, so the avalanche danger will be at a minimal level. Great News!! After the initial snow and rock gully climb, it will be a nice, long stroll to the true summit of Pikes, another 2 miles away. Pikes Peak has a lot of acreage that is above treeline. Once gaining the ridge proper, the summit appears to be off in another time zone! It should take us the better part of saturday to make this climb, but it will be worth it. National Weather Service is calling for a 10% to 20% chance of snow and a high of 10 degrees F above treeline with winds becoming stronger as the day progresses.

The picture above contains 2 of the options that we might go up to begin our climb from Glen Cove. I have added a link to the Pikes Peak Telemark Club website containing a guide for the Glen Cove area. http://pikespeaktelemark.org/devils_playground.html I will submit a more detailed report of my climb after I return on saturday night. The only down side thus so far with starting in Glen Cove, is the toll required to enter the Pikes Peak Highway en route to the visitor center at Glen Cove. It will cut off several miles and add a little more climbing to the route. The original route I had planned on was starting out at The Crags campground on the west side of Pikes and then hiking up to Devil's Playgound, gaining the long main northwest ridge to the summit. Starting at Glen Cove, we will top out at Devil's Playgound and then follow the Crags route along the ridge to the summit. It looks to be a fun and exciting day out.