Intro
After a week of sitting at my computer with a view of mountains from my backyard, I was itching for some mountain exercise. Friday morning meetings and monitoring over and nothing pressing for the afternoon, I set off to spend Friday afternoon in the Indian Peaks, since some timed entry permits were still available. Shoshoni Peak—which I had never summitted—sounded like a good objective. I figured I could do a nice loop approaching via the North Slope (2nd) from Pawnee Pass and desending via the SW Couloir (3rd) down to Isabelle Glacier and hike out via Lake Isabelle. I was also curous to check out the ridge between Shoshoni and Apache, which is dotted with tower formations ("The Chessmen"). The Kasparov Traverse (5.9 R) between Shoshoni and Apache is the traverse involving a climb of each tower, and is supposedly one of the best ridge traverses in the Indian Peaks. If I had time I would try to traverse to the summit of Apache (I tihnk you can bypass the towers and keep the traverse at 3rd-4th class), but it sounded a bit too involved for my time frame (and it was).
The entire adventure (up and over Shoshoni and about 1 hour detor to check out the traverse between Shoshoni and Apache) took just under 6 hours. An enjoyable way to get some exercise.
This page contains a map, stats, and lots of photos from my Friday afternoon mountain fix.
