The LIGANN Traverse: Lost Tribe Lakes, Iroquois, Mt. George, Apache Peak, Navajo Peak, Niwot Ridge (Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado)

Trip date: Sept 08-09, 2018

Looking from the south ridge of Apache Peak towards ominous rain behind Iruqois Peak.

Note: This trip report has proved more popular than others.  Because of this and the description of travel over technical terrain, I'm editing this post for clarity and accuracy.  TB Nov 12 2018 

As the weekend approached I was faced with my usual predicament: where haven't I been that's within an hour of my bed?  On the Pififfner Traverse, bad weather on day 5 forced me to take an all trail bypass around the Crater Lake cirque and also meant that I would miss Lost Tribe Lakes behind Crater Lake.  I toyed with the idea of simply doing the route I planned for the Pfiffner Traverse in reverse but I wasn't excited about descending the loose-dirt filled NE Gully of Mt. Achonee.  

I was skimming the relevant section of Gerry Roach's book "Colorado's Indian Peaks" and noticed the following description of Mt. Iroquois/Lost Tribe Lakes: 

"This is one of the most remote climbs in the Indian Peaks. If you are looking for solitude, this is it....(Lost Tribe Lakes) is the most pristine place in Indians Peaks and is reserved for those willing to work for it... The views (from the summit of Iruquois) will knock your socks off."

It seemed that Roach had simplified my decision making considerably.  He had a throwaway note in the route description for Iroqouis about an "Extra Credit" option to traverse over to Mt. George, which he described as a "long and arduous" adventure.  Why not keep going to Apache?  Hell, you might as well include Navajo Peak.  Once you've picked up an acronym, there's no cost to include Niwot Ridge.  

​This route samples some rarely seen, and arguably some of the best scenery in all of Indian Peaks Wilderness.  Even the vanilla "on-trail" portions on Day 1 near the Arapaho Glacier Trail, Arapaho Pass, views of Mt. Neva, and Caribou Lake are world class.   However, due to the superiority of the off-trail portions on Day 2, I have named this route the LIGANN traverse after the 6 primary objectives: 

• L: Lost Tribe Lakes
• I: Iroquois
• G: Mt. George
• A: Appache Peak
• N: Navajo Peak
• N: ​Niwot Ridge

(If you're the first to do something, you have license to invent stupid names like LIGANN right?)

An overview of the best part of the LIGANN Traverse. My path is roughly indicated by dashed red line. Google Earth image with overlay of my GPS track shown in another image below.

I started at Rainbow Lakes and moved towards 4th of July Mine and then to Arapaho Pass.  After dropping down to Caribou Lakes, I headed towards Coyote Park and then Wheeler Basin.  I was worried about Wheeler Basin being a time-consuming bushwhack but there is actually a spectacular unofficial/use trail that goes several miles.  (Someone has since pointed out that this use trail was originally built by a mining operation.  More info here). The bushwhack/scramble up to Lost Tribe Lakes is definitely tough but reasonably straightforward.  The next day consisted of combining several documented scrambles into one very long route on a ridge.  The only real unknown was the section between Iroquois and Mt. George.  The only two bits of information I could find was 1) Gerry Roach's claim that it was class 3, and 2) a singular mention of a "class 4 downclimb" in Peter Bakwin's trip report on the Mohling Traverse.  Once you've found the best route it felt like easy Class 4.  The traverse from Mt. George to Apache was easy (Class 2/3).  The final approach to, and the final climb up the "west chimney" on the back/west of Navajo Peak is probably the most technical section (Class 4).  The last section between Airplane Gully and the end of Niwot Ridge (at least Class 3 if staying on ridge proper) was surprisingly tough.  I was thinking this would be simple talus hopping and would serve as the "dessert" after a hard day.  LIGANN had other plans and and deployed her boss.  It's probably all class 3 but there's 1.3 miles of it and the route finding wasn't always obvious.  I was very happy when it transitioned to tundra.  

Advertisement #1: While this route is extremely highly recommended, it's not for everyone.  It's over 32 miles/ +9000' vertical gain and features two mandatory sections of class 4 scrambling.  Easily my hardest two consecutive days yet.  It could be broken up into more days with possible camps at 4th of July Mine, Caribou Lake, or in the bowl north of Niwot Mt.  However, given the intensity of the scrambling required I'd probably try to do it with as small of a food carry/pack size as possible.  

Advertisement #2: This route skirts the boundaries of the Boulder County Watershed.  Officials in Boulder will often bend the rules to support people with adventurous spirits but this seems to a serious exception.  Staying out of the watershed requires 7-8 miles beyond what the geography would support.  It also requires a lot of discipline...

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Day 1

Caltopo map here:  caltopo.com/m/D0A2
The "Land Management" overlay is useful for visualizing the boundaries of the watershed.  

Reminder: the beginning and end of this one are in the Boulder watershed and are off limits. This sign looks old. I bet the fine is much more than $100 now.

Looking into fantastic peaks in the Boulder Watershed. The "forbidden fruit" of Indian Peaks.

Summit of Caribou Peak.

Looking back at the impressive summit cairn on Caribou Peak.

In general there's no water between Rainbow Lakes and the Fourth of July Mine. The only exception I found was a weak stream directly below the Old Baldy Ridge at about 12,630 feet (see map). This was pretty convenient and not very far from the trail. (FYI, I filtered this water even though it is likely very clean).

I've been to the area around S. Arapaho Peak 5 times this summer (#1, #2, #3, #4 and now this one).  It hasn't gotten old yet but I didn't take too many pictures this time.  

Looking back at Arapaho Pass after dropping down to Caribou Lake.

Lost Tribe Lakes sits in the bowl on the south side of Mt. Achonee (center).

I wound up making the bushwhack/climb up to Lost Tribe Lakes in the dark and just before a rain storm.  Near ~11,400 feet-ish I found several very strong elk trails with fresh droppings that contoured east-west.  These certainly go between the Lost Tribe Lakes and Wheeler Basin.  If you knew where to pick them up in Wheeler Basin I bet this would be the best route to Lost Tribe Lakes.  I didn't have time this trip to follow them very far.  

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Day 2

My campsite at Lost Tribe Lake

Google Earth satellite image of the ridge line overlaid with my GPS track.

Don't you just want to sleep in that cave?

I took the gully up to Iroquois. Stable talus at the bottom, but looser near the top.

Looking south (backwards) from Lost Tribe Lakes.

The impressive wall above upper Lost Tribe Lakes

Looking south about halfway up the talus filled gully.

Another view looking south.

Looking north through the notch at the top of the gully.

Looking north from Iroquois Peak. The spire in the immediate foreground is "Limbo", the high point on the ridge extending to the iconic Lone Eagle Peak.

Looking east towards the "Chessman" between Apache and Shoshoni. The route across these towers is known as "Kasparov's Traverse". A class 4 bypass exists...

Looking down from the south ridge of Iroqois. I hopped across stable talus on the ascent because I somehow missed this obvious path on the way up.

First section along the ridge approach to Mt. George (viewed from the south ridge of Iroquois Peak). The first section has tundra/talus but soon you encounter some moderately technical notches which presented the toughest route-finding of the entire route.

Looking back at Iroquois Peak

A bit farther down the road--another view looking back at Iroquois Peak.

Troublesome Tower: Class 3/4 crux

Troublesome tower (left foreground) en route to Mt. George. Apache Peak on the far left skyline. Mt. George on the right.

​Pretty soon (see caltopo map) you'll encounter a troublesome tower en route to Mt. George.  You have access to the tower at the base but this looks like serious 5th class, exposed climbing (no thanks).  The best bypass I found was to drop ~40-60 feet vertical just on the western side of a gully at the base of the tower.  Some options definitely looked worse than others--choose wisely.

Looking down the gully to bypass the tower.

Looking back down at the gully bypass at the base of the tower.

Looking back at the top of the "troublesome tower" after completing the gully bypass. You can see the large block in bottom/middle of this photo in the photo on the left as well.

Note: I should mention that upon analysis of his GPS track, Peter Bakwin apparently didn't drop as far down the gully as I did when he reached this tower.  I'm not totally sure what he did.  

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Another view looking back at Iruquois after passing the "troublesome tower".

Closer view of the west face of Apache Peak

Weather still looks great right? (looking north from top of Fair Glacier)

West facing gully behind Apache Peak. I took this gully about 80% of the way up.

The snow on the bottom left is the top of the Fair Glacier behind Apache Peak. Weather still looks super boring and not at all worrisome.

Looking towards Caribou Lake. If you look closely you can see the trail connecting Arapaho Pass (left) with Caribou Pass (right)

Seeing such pleasant skies to my north around North Arapaho Peak probably gave me a false sense of security.

Looking north down to Triangle Lake below the Fair Glacier. Taken from the gully near the south ridge of Apache Peak.

​The weather had put me in a tough spot.  Navigating all the quasi-technical sections along the ridge to Mt. George (only the toughest one is described) had cost a lot of time.  At this point the closest exit was "Airplane Gully" just east of Navajo Peak.  I was concerned by the approaching clouds but there wasn't really anything to do about it.  I just had to hope that it would miss me and if not, find a place to hunker down if it got serious.  

Too steep for an easy descent.

This is the coolest rock I've found in a while. Looks like typical white granite on the outside but with black glass on the inside. "I wonder if this was actually resulting from a lightning stri...." BBBOOOOMMM. Immediately after the thunderclap, snow and rain started falling around me.

I had seen a tantalizing boulder in the talus field some 100 feet below me so I made a run for that.  I didn't really know what to expect but hoped it would give me a little bit of shelter.  

Once under the boulder, I wrapped up in my tarp (over my rain jacket) and hoped it wouldn't get too bad. North Arapaho Peak (left foreground) doesn't look so cheerful anymore.

Silver lining: I was running low on water, but the snow that was accumulating on my tarp was super yummy.

I was stuck under that rock for about 30 minutes.  I kept wondering how far you really had to be from a lightning strike for it to dissipate enough to not kill you instantly.  Hopefully, I was outside that range.  The storm seemed to be moving north-->south and it just kept looking worse and worse ahead of me (I was looking north). 

The lightning wasn't really my biggest concern; lightning tends to decrease in occurrence/severity by the end of the summer and into fall. Most of the thunder I heard seemed to be rumbling cloud-cloud strikes.  I was more worried about  1) getting chilled from the ~20 degree F drop in temperature and 2) the possibility of the storm depositing of sheet of ice over my talus highway.  

​Eventually, I got the courage to crawl out from under my rock and look up at the skies above me.  

Blue skies! Boy am I glad to see you!

Dear Rock Shelter- Our time was brief, but I won't forget you.

Weather still not great so I didn't spend much time on Apache. Looking towards the Navajo false summit on the ridge between Apache and Navajo Peak.

Looking down into Lake Isabelle valley. Mt. Shoshoni on the left, Niwot Ridge on the right.

The "troublesome tower" on Mt. George was tricky but once you found the route it wasn't technically very complicated.  I actually thought that Navajo peak was much more difficult.  Most of this was because I was coming from Apache which isn't the standard route.  I had to climb the Class 4 "West Chimney" route.  This shouldn't be confused with the chimney variation of the standard Airplane Gully route on the south face of Navajo.  There are good descriptions of this one on page 118 of Derek Wolfe's book and page 60 of Gerry Roach's book.

The views of the long ridge extending from Arikaree to North Arapaho (below photo, right) were the best part the Arapaho Traverse from the previous week (see opening photo from that trip report).  The photo below shows the same ridge from the other perspective.

Arikaree Peak cradling its glacier like a baby (left). The long ridge extending from Arikaree to North Arapaho (right) is along the continental divide and includes the unofficial peak "Deshawa".

3 weeks, 3 trips to Indian Peaks, 3 airplane wrecks. A strange trifecta.

This is apparently from a Douglas C-47 (the military version of a DC-3). The wreckage is in the western gully, which is parallel to but displaced by ~50 feet from the one people usually climb.

Apparently looking for crashed airplanes can be classified as a "hobby".

Looking north towards Shoshoni Peak from the top of "Airplane Gully" just east of Navajo Peak. Longs Peak in the far distance.

Looking east along Niwot Ridge from the summit area of Navajo Peak. I wasn't originally planning on staying on the ridge for so long but this tundra looked easy. Unfortunately, hidden from this view is another 1.3 miles of continuous scrambling.

The Chessman doing their best impression of Monument Valley