Pacific Peak and "Atlantic Peak"
30 June
2007
Pictures * Route Map *
Trip Report
Click a picture to see a larger view.
"Atlantic Peak" (13,841') and Pacific Peak
(13,950')
Date: 30 June 2007
Climbers: Roy Donehower and Dave Gibson
Trailhead: Mayflower Gulch
Roundtrip distance: 6.5 miles
Elevation gain: 3,400 feet
Round trip time: 6 hours, 56 minutes
The last time I was in Mayflower Gulch was October 2004 when Roy, Dave Hale, and I climbed Crystal Peak in an 8-hour postholefest. With much less snow and only a little postholing on this beautiful Saturday morning, Roy and I climbed Atlantic and Pacific at a casual pace in just under 7 hours.
Roy and I reached Mayflower Gulch Friday night just in time to set up our tents before dark. The 4WD road up to the Boston Mine was rough, but probably passable for a passenger car with good clearance. We camped at 11,500' just after the Mayflower Creek crossing near the old Boston Mine buildings. There was a locked gate at the creek crossing which I don't recall being there in 2004. It appeared that Roy and I had all of Mayflower Gulch to ourselves.
After a decent night's sleep under a full moon and a quick cold breakfast, we started hiking at 5:52 am. We worked our way through the marsh and willows without problems before reaching the familiar Pacific Creek drainage. We crossed Pacific Creek and ascended on the north side since that's how we did it last time. However, on our way back we found a nice trail on the south side of the creek. Near 12,200', we left Pacific Creek and crossed two patches of soft snow to climb up onto Atlantic Peak's long west ridge. The ridgeline provided great views back down into Mayflower Gulch and of the awesome gendarme-studded ridge between Fletcher and Atlantic. We made good progress up the Class 2 ridgeline until we reached a narrow snow-covered section near 13,300'. While crossing the this snow with ice axes ready would not have been difficult, we opted to down climb about 80 feet on the Mayflower Gulch side and climb back up to the ridgeline above the snow. This short detour provided some fun Class 3 scrambling. With no further difficulties, we reached the summit of Atlantic at 8:27 am, after 2 hours and 35 minutes of hiking. Even at that relatively early hour, we could see the crowds beginning to from on Quandary Peak 1.5 miles to the southeast.
After 25 minutes on Atlantic, we descended about 450 feet to the broad Atlantic-Pacific saddle which was filled with alpine flowers. From the saddle we climbed about 550 feet on excellent rock to the summit of Pacific Peak. Along the way we passed the still partially frozen Pacific Tarn, which at 13,420' is the highest officially named lake in the United States. We reached the summit of Pacific at 9:51 am, an hour after starting the traverse from Atlantic. Pacific has a small summit with a dramatic drop off above its steep north face. By this time we could make out over a dozen people on Quandary's summit. After enjoying Pacific's summit for half an hour, we down climbed some and traversed around the high point just west of Pacific's summit. This felt like just a bit of mildly exposed Class 3 climbing to me. After briefly considering a descent along Pacific's Class 3 west ridge, we decided to take the longer route down toward the Pacific-Crystal saddle. The ridge provided a steep rocky but solid descent with great views over the edge to the east. About half way down to the saddle we left the ridge and followed a faint more direct trail down to the Humbug Creek drainage.
Once off the steep slopes we traversed under Pacific Peak's west ridge crossing a few snow fields with occasional postholing. Making sure we headed south of Mayflower Hill, we reascended 50' or so to get back into the Pacific Creek drainage. From this vantage point, Pacific's Class 3 west ridge didn't look all that bad. If I return to this area, I'll probably climb this ridge. The Pacific Creek basin was filled with flowers and waterfalls. As the drainage narrowed, we caught a trial on the south side of Pacific Creek. While faint at times, the trail led directly back toward the Boston Mine. After crossing through a narrow section of willows, we returned to our starting point at 12:49 pm after almost 7 hours of hiking under beautiful sunny skies. We spoke briefly with a group that had attempted Drift Peak that morning. Without ice axes, they were turned back by a steep snow field across their route. I'm looking forward to returning to Mayflower Gulch to climb Fletcher Mountain and Drift Peak.