Palisade Mountain Scramble 11/22
3.9mi RT 2570' EVG
Joe had taken some very clear pictures of the rugged south face of Palisade Mountain and studied them to find potential routes from the old Idylwilde Dam site and I was invited to go along for the adventure. While the upper parts of Palisade's south face are almost vertical cliffs, there is a gully system that takes you to the base of Saddle Tower and on to the forested shoulders of the peak. Along with Scott, who we hiked with the year before on a trip on the opposite side of the canyon, we parked at the 1976 flood memorial pullout and started the climb.
The base of the south face is scattered with boulders and bushes, which can be painful if you hike in shorts as I usually do. We picked our way over some outcrops and entered some sparse pine trees. As we began to contour towards the main gulch we stopped to enjoy the view of the impressive rocky cliffs and ridges that lied above us. Across from the main gulch is a long string of outcrops that would make for an exceptional scramble, though I doubt you could take it all the way to the top without entering class 5 terrain. Palisade is made of a type of granite called Tonalite(as are the nearby rock formations like Combat Rock, Cedar Park Slab and Spruce Mountain) which exfoliates with very smooth surfaces, especially after weathering. For this reason, you'd definitely want to find a route that "goes" so that you don't have to downclimb the steep featureless slabs.
We found a way down into the main gulch and continued the climb upwards. When we first entered the gulch, we were headed roughly northeast in the direction of the summit, but in the upper fourth of the gulch(we entered at about the halfway point) it takes a turn to the northwest. At this point, we were able to see Saddle Tower above us with a single tree sticking out of its top, so we knew we were on the right track. The gulch narrowed into more of a gully, and we had to be careful not to knock any rocks down on each other. The scrambling wasn't too difficult, or at least it probably didn't need to be more than 3rd class depending on how you chose your way up. Near the terminus of the gully was a rock slide with pretty much every boulder having chips and scratches that suggested that they had slid recently, so we took extra care climbing over this section. At the base of Saddle Tower we took a break, I tried to make my way over to the top but it was a little too snowy on the shaded 3rd class side for me to risk it.
Now finished with the gully scrambling, we made our way towards the summit bump following the well cairned social trail. There were some snow patches up to about 10" deep that we stomped through, At the summit we enjoyed great views of the RMNP peaks and the other lower mountains of the Front Range. From the summit we followed the east shoulder down to a smaller ridge that led back down to the highway, but we ended up dropping away from it since it was more rocky that expected. Instead we entered another gulch, climbed out of it, contoured along it, dropped back into it, climbed back out of it and descended almost all the way down to the road. Because there was a bit of private land separating us from the road, we turned west and climbed over a hill before finding a good spot to drop to the road, at which point we hiked along the shoulder back to the pullout.
For more pictures and a much more accurate GPS track, please check out Joe's trip report at joeandfrede.com
Joe had taken some very clear pictures of the rugged south face of Palisade Mountain and studied them to find potential routes from the old Idylwilde Dam site and I was invited to go along for the adventure. While the upper parts of Palisade's south face are almost vertical cliffs, there is a gully system that takes you to the base of Saddle Tower and on to the forested shoulders of the peak. Along with Scott, who we hiked with the year before on a trip on the opposite side of the canyon, we parked at the 1976 flood memorial pullout and started the climb.
The base of the south face is scattered with boulders and bushes, which can be painful if you hike in shorts as I usually do. We picked our way over some outcrops and entered some sparse pine trees. As we began to contour towards the main gulch we stopped to enjoy the view of the impressive rocky cliffs and ridges that lied above us. Across from the main gulch is a long string of outcrops that would make for an exceptional scramble, though I doubt you could take it all the way to the top without entering class 5 terrain. Palisade is made of a type of granite called Tonalite(as are the nearby rock formations like Combat Rock, Cedar Park Slab and Spruce Mountain) which exfoliates with very smooth surfaces, especially after weathering. For this reason, you'd definitely want to find a route that "goes" so that you don't have to downclimb the steep featureless slabs.
We found a way down into the main gulch and continued the climb upwards. When we first entered the gulch, we were headed roughly northeast in the direction of the summit, but in the upper fourth of the gulch(we entered at about the halfway point) it takes a turn to the northwest. At this point, we were able to see Saddle Tower above us with a single tree sticking out of its top, so we knew we were on the right track. The gulch narrowed into more of a gully, and we had to be careful not to knock any rocks down on each other. The scrambling wasn't too difficult, or at least it probably didn't need to be more than 3rd class depending on how you chose your way up. Near the terminus of the gully was a rock slide with pretty much every boulder having chips and scratches that suggested that they had slid recently, so we took extra care climbing over this section. At the base of Saddle Tower we took a break, I tried to make my way over to the top but it was a little too snowy on the shaded 3rd class side for me to risk it.
Now finished with the gully scrambling, we made our way towards the summit bump following the well cairned social trail. There were some snow patches up to about 10" deep that we stomped through, At the summit we enjoyed great views of the RMNP peaks and the other lower mountains of the Front Range. From the summit we followed the east shoulder down to a smaller ridge that led back down to the highway, but we ended up dropping away from it since it was more rocky that expected. Instead we entered another gulch, climbed out of it, contoured along it, dropped back into it, climbed back out of it and descended almost all the way down to the road. Because there was a bit of private land separating us from the road, we turned west and climbed over a hill before finding a good spot to drop to the road, at which point we hiked along the shoulder back to the pullout.
For more pictures and a much more accurate GPS track, please check out Joe's trip report at joeandfrede.com
