Notch Mountain
Holy Cross Wilderness

The week in Vail was quickly coming to a close. My friend Chuck and I had one more day to be out in the woods. We’d talked about hiking several different mountains and decided to stick with the Holy Cross Wilderness theme. In the end, we picked Notch Mountain. There were two options, the main trail off Fall River we’d passed on our previous hike. Another route would take us up to the true peak by following the trail for Mt. of the Holy Cross and diverting south at Half Moon Pass. We decided on the latter so we could get to the true summit.

It looked like there might be a way for us to drop down into the notch, and maybe be able to come back the other way. It looked sketchy on the topo map. We decided we’d evaluate it when we got there.

Starting out

For the second time this week, we headed up the long, bumpy road to the Mt. of the Holy Cross trailhead, better known as the Tigiwon Road. We tried to hit as many mud holes as we could to make sure the Jeep had some nice dirt on it. Making sure you leave with a little mud and dirt is an important aspect of driving backcountry roads.

There are some interesting signs at the trailhead. One talks about the recent bear activity (we didn’t see any). The other reminds people that Mt. of the Holy Cross isn’t a simple day hike and that there have been recent Search and Rescue calls from the mountain. Hopefully people are paying attention to these signs. As you can see from the picture below, Chuck was quite taken by the information available. The weather was cloudy and cool as we hit the trail.

Half Moon Pass

The outbound GPX track is a little messed up since my Garmin missed about 20-30 minutes of GPX points. You can see from the return trip in the GPX Track that the climb is pretty consistent up to the pass. The views start to open up as we approached the pass and got above tree line. Looking back, we could see spots of color from the aspens. Reminded us that any day out on the mountain is a good day. Getting to the pass also allowed us to see the weather coming in from the west. It looked like snow showers would be hitting us before long just like they did on Tuesday.

Where are we?

The trail to Notch Mountain departs the main trail at the top of the pass. We followed the obvious trail to our left and headed up. After exiting a small area of trees, you are at the bottom of a boulder field. The trail can be a little difficult to follow here. If you head left, you’ll come across some cairns and find the trail pretty easily after that point. We didn’t do that. Instead, I led poor Chuck to the right and we went straight up the boulder field. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen the doubt about my skills in my fellow hikers eyes.

Halfway up the boulder field we had the change in weather we’d spotted on the pass. The wind picked up and some snow started falling. It wasn’t too bad, however, so we kept going on Rob’s Route to Notch Mountain.

Getting up to the first ridge got us huffing and puffing. Climbing over the boulders up the steep incline was kinda fun, although definitely not a trail. Once over the ridge, the view was pretty obscured by clouds. The climbing leveled off and we scrambled past many boulders into a saddle at 12,750′. We saw some cairns and took up with the trail I’d missed below.

Getting to the summit

During the course of the next half-hour, I was able to take us off-trail several times. Eventually the trail became so obvious that even I could not keep us off of it. Near the summit, the main trail seems to go past the peak and towards the notch. There are only a few cairns to mark the path up to the true summit. We did make it to the summit. While we were there, the weather cleared up a bit and we had fantastic views of Mt. of the Holy Cross and the surrounding mountains.

We enjoyed a snack and talked about crossing the notch. From our perspective, it looked well beyond our skillset. There appeared to be a way to the go around the sheer cliff face to the west of the peak. It wasn’t something that we really felt comfortable doing that day, especially with the moisture on the rocks. A day without death is always better in our view.

The trail back from Notch Mountain

An amazing thing happened on the way back, we followed a trail that was obvious the whole way…and MUCH easier! Poor Chuck, following an inept navigator most of the day. Note, if you follow the trail it is an easy Class 2 trek up to the peak. While not exactly a challenging Class 3 or even an easy Class 3, Rob’s Route does require using your hands to scramble over rocks and boulders making it a lot more fun, especially if it’s snowing.

As we came around to the pass, the weather came in again. It made for some good video. I had a good view of the Gore Range so snapped that as well.

We didn’t see any big game on the hike. After leaving the pass, however, we did scare up a grouse. It looked like a dusky grouse based on the limited time I saw it. Unfortunately we didn’t get a pic.

This turned out to be a really fun hike and the snow made it even more fun. Overall, another great day hiking in Colorado!

Notch Mountain GPX Track