Point 9200 (Northwest of Eagle Peak)
3 March
2007
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Trip Report
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3 Mar 2007 - Point 9200 (39.00444N, 104.92153W)
Hikers: Nate Jensen and Dave Gibson
Trailhead: Goat Camp Creek
Round trip distance: 3.2 miles
Round trip time: 3 hours (1:30 up, 1:15 down)
Elevation gain: ~1730'
The view west from my office is dominated by "Eagle Peak" (North Peak) which towers above the Air Force Academy's cadet area with its large rock face. Following the Rampart Range skyline north from Eagle Peak, you quickly come to a much smaller rocky point which is northwest of Eagle Peak and southwest of the "Cadet Overlook". I've wanted to check out this point for some time and today finally did.
Nate and I started up Goat Camp Creek under sunny skies but in frigid temperatures at 7:43 am. The trail leading to Eagle Peak was as icy and treacherous as I've ever seen it. The steep climb warmed me up quickly but my fingers remained painfully cold for much of the way up. When we reached the glade at about 8800' we left our usual route, crossed to the north side of the glade, and began ascending to the 9000' point on the ridge between Eagle Peak and our objective. The firm snow on the south side of this slope made for easy going. The small rocky 9000' summit provided views, partially obscured by trees, of Eagle Peak to the south, the cadet area to the west, and the now more impressive looking "Point 9200" to the north. To reach our objective we had to descent about 100' to Goat Camp Creek and then climb about 300' to Point 9200.
We descended to Goat Camp Creek on a shady north slope in nearly waist deep powdery snow. Had we had snowshoes (mine were in my Jeep at the trailhead), they probably would not have helped much in this section. The steep and rocky south face of Point 9200 presented no attractive approach option so we contoured to the west for an easy ascent on once again firm south slope snow. About half way up this slope we came to an odd pit about 10 feet deep with squared rock walls on three sides. The snow made it difficult to tell whether the pit was manmade or not. It may have been an old mine entrance or just a very strange rock configuration. The final push to the 9200' summit from the west was on an easy to climb rock slope.
The true summit of Point 9200 was not obvious as it contained several rocky positions all about the same height. (I compulsively scrambled onto each of them.) As expected, the summit provided great unobstructed views to the east, south, and west. Looking south, it was apparent that the 9000' summit we had crossed is on a high ridge between the upper "Eagle Peak Trail" and Goat Camp Creek. Prior to this perspective, I have incorrectly believed that Goat Camp Creek flowed through the glade below Eagle Peak's northwest slopes. On our way down, we retraced our route to Goat Camp Creek and then followed this drainage back down to the Eagle Peak Trail. This descent route entailed wallowing through some deep snow and fighting our way through dense brush, but ended up being much more reasonable than I had expected. Along the way we saw some beautiful ice flows and lots of mountain lion tracks. In fact, based on the density of tracks, it looked like we crawled right over a mountain lion's den. We rejoined the Eagle Peak Trail just below the 15' boulder at about 8500'. I put on my Satilicers for the descent back down the icy trail and still managed to slip and fall twice. From the tracks, it was clear that one person recently on the trail had been wearing crampons - not a bad idea! We reached the trailhead at 10:47 am after a very enjoyable 3-hour morning hike.