Solo Explorations on Hesperus

Mount Hesperus - Dibé Nitsaa in the Diné language, Big Mountain Sheep, the Obsidian mountain of the North, the mountain made of fossils that marks the highest point of Montezuma County, is always a popular local hike but this fall offered up some fantastic ice and mixed climbing conditions during a warm and dry spell in early November. The North Face provided some of the most fun “cardio alpinism” I’ve found in a continental snowpack.

From wherever you are in Montezuma County or even the greater Four Corners, you can probably see the La Plata Mountains, of which Hesperus is the high point. It’s striking rock bands - composed of Mancos and Morrison shales and Dakota sandstone partially metamorphosed into slate and quartzite by the monzodiorite intrusion that raised the La Platas - catch the eye from far, far away. For a climber, the mountain’s banded north face is just steep enough to be compelling and technically engaging, but maintains a looseness that makes climbing it in dry conditions unpleasant at best, dangerous at worst. I had always wondered if it would climb well frozen, frozen enough to hold all the choss together, if the stars would align for there to be ice on the face without snow blocking the long road to the trailhead or elevating the avalanche hazard of the upper face.

On November 5th of this year, the stars aligned.

The North Face of Hesperus in perfect early winter conditions. I climbed the central ice line plum below the summit, the Direct North Face, along with a more convoluted and hard to see mixed line up the NE Buttress, on the left side. Lavender Peak, the rocky pyramid in the background, was also home to a bunch of fun rock routes I climbed this summer - routes thought to be FAs until I find the telltale mossed-over early 80s era nut or hex halfway up.

I went first for the low hanging fruit - an obvious ribbon of ice starting from around 11k, snaking through the lower rock bands and culminating in a steep, thin pitch of WI3 followed by a vertical rock band (which went at about 5.6/7, but I had crampons on so… M4? idk).

From there, it was hero, with nearly perfect styrofoam neve (rare to find in a continental snowpack) punctuated by easy rock bands - allowing for fun, efficient travel right up to the summit, the exact kind of calf-burning training I want in the early winter climbing season. In less than an hour after strapping crampons on around 11k, I stood on the summit about 2.5k ft higher. Climbing such a face with nothing but Mancos, Cortez, and Dolores far below me (enjoying nearly 70 degree temperatures down there), Sleeping Ute and the red rocks of the Colorado Plateau stretching as far as I could see was quite the transcendent experience.

The other thing about Hesperus is the fossils. Mancos Shale and the Morrison formation are two of the most fossiliferous rock layers in North America, formed in shallow tropical seas and coastal swamps and inland floodplains full of life about 160 to 80 m.y.a. The elevation and metamorphism of Hesperus was just enough to harden these layers and make the rocks easier to view and sift through, but not so strong as to destroy any fossils. The results are incredible. I would normally not share such a specific location for something like this on the internet, but rest assured the majority of fossils are locked away in rock bands too difficult or dangerous to reach by the lay person interested in making a quick buck. I left them all in place.

An ammonite and an open clamshell in Mancos shale. I’ve also found oysters and belemnites.

A few days later, I came back, seeking a more technical line further left on the face. There were several options forming. The king line - a narrow multipitch ice chimney - had melted and fallen out in the preceding days (some friends attempted it and bailed), but another option snaked up the NE buttress and caught my eye.

The NE Buttress line I climbed at about M4, maybe harder. I think in a fat year it would fill in entirely at a moderate ice grade, but not today. The Direct NF line is barely visible on the right.

A fat pitch of easy WI3 kicked things off, followed by some very cool easy mixed in a corner with delicate sticks. A hundred or two meters of choss followed, with the crux being a somewhat slabby dihedral-type feature peppered with small blobs of delicate ice. It was scary, but I was soon through it and enjoyed a couple hundred more meters of neve, contrived dry tooling and low-fifth rock bands to the sunny summit.

Highlights include.

For future missions, if the crux pitch is, like on this day, “not in”, a steep and thin corner just to the left looks like it would go at cool M6/7 on solid rock with some ice blobs and verglas. I wanted to climb it bad, but alas I was alone and that would be difficult.

This was the first recorded ascent of the technical NE Buttress line, and my climb of the Direct NF was the second recorded ascent after my friend Ruben snagged the first just two days before. With that said, given the long history of undercover climbing in the San Juans, I would be naive to claim the first anything. But who knows!

I’m grateful for all the time I get to spend in the mountains, but these days were extra special. Something about finally doing the thing that you stare at every day, interacting with a mountain that has long been a local nexus of sanctity, having a conversation you get to hold onto and ponder for a long time. Thank you, Hesperus.