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Peak(s)  El Diente Peak  -  14,175 feet
Mt. Wilson  -  14,256 feet
Wilson Peak  -  14,021 feet
Date Posted  08/27/2022
Modified  09/22/2022
Date Climbed   08/27/2022
Author  Camoclimber
Additional Members   Zach, cash, Louie
 Full Wilson Group   

We drove from Golden CO to Rock of Ages Trailhead, arriving there at around 1 A.M. There were 4 of us, our plan was to split into two groups. Zach and Louie were to wait and sleep for a couple hours and then summit El Diente where Cash and I were supposed to meet them and join them in traversing to mount Wilson. Cash and I began a brisk pace on the trail to the Rock of Ages Saddle. We kept a fairly consistent pace of 4 mph (easily running most of the approach). We rested at the lake for a short time. Achieving the saddle, elevation started to play a minor role and we both became quite tired. We continued on what we thought was a trail towards the summit. We decided to stick slightly high because "it looked better." Cash began to lose feeling in his hands because of the cold, so I stuck them into my armpits, warmed them up, and we were all good to continue, albeit tired and slightly cold. We continued up crappy rock, skirting the ridge, as there didn't seem a good point to downclimb. Eventually, I located a sketchy scree gulley and descended that to a trail. We continued up to Wilson Peak, we had lost a lot of time; the sun was beginning to poke out in one of the beautiful CO sunrises. We encountered copious amounts of black ice slathered on the rocks, which greatly enhanced the summit-scramble. We finally stood atop Wilson Peak, Cash rested for a bit, we started down. It was still quite slippery, but as we descended the ice had melted and we were descending on wet rock instead of icy rock. We successfully descended into the basin, where my wonderful sense of direction urged me to go back towards Rock of Ages Trailhead to find El Diente. I quickly realized I was going the wrong way and ran back up over the Rock of Ages Saddle adding about 2 miles and losing about half an hour. I located Cash waiting for me in the valley near the Northwest Buttress of El Diente, we started up the route. We climbed the gulley, until we saw the waterfall, we then cut left onto some slab gaining the buttress proper, and we continued up to the peak. It was easy fun boulder hopping on great quality rock. It took longer than I would have liked (Elevation and lack of sleep was getting to us), but we achieved the summit, finding the crux of the Butress was really not difficult (the chimney was sort of hard to start, but once started, it was quite easy). We met Zach and Louie on the summit who had been hanging out for an hour. We rested, exchanged brief stories, and then I decided to continue with them to the traverse. Cash decided to descend. The walkout to Kilpacker was easy and straightforward, and we would point him down the correct gulley, so we decided it would be ok to split up, plus we had long range radios. Cash descended and we started the traverse (Cash also did not like the singular cumulus cloud in the sky). I don't remember too much of the traverse, I was quite tired by that point, catching naps on some of the catwalks while Zach and Louie traversed. I was surprised by the exposure of this traverse, if I were not so tired, the low technical medium exposure on the ridge would have been extremely fun, but I was too tired to enjoy it. We summitted Wilson, started down the gulley, cut over to the right to avoid the cliff, and then we encountered an injured climber a bit beyond the bottom of the Wilson gulley. Even though he seemed fine, we waited for him, helped flag in the helicopter, and then left. This took about an hour. We then stumbled along the hike out, gritting through it. We were out maybe 30 minutes after dark. We met Cash at the car and took shifts driving back to Golden. This whole climb came out to about 23 miles for me.




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