At the Road Leading to the Byers Peak Trail Head

Parked on the side of a narrow road having to hike up 1.6 miles to the actual trail head to Byers Peak. I noticed when I got to the trail head that my climbs up Bottle and Ptarmigan Peaks were right in the same area in matter of fact right across the valley from Byers and Bills Peaks. My original plan was to do the Byers Bills Peak Loop. Both Byers and Bills are 12ers close to being 13ers. I knew this was going to be a long climb and not as easy as I originally thought. The climb up to Byers was great until the last pitch to the summit where we encountered a very narrow ridge line with class 2 plus bordering class 3 climbing to the summit. After watching Cody navigating to the summit I almost had a heart attack several times as we were both tethered together, one wrong move on either of our parts could have ended catastrophic. The summit of Byers Peak was very small and I was a wreck. I didn't even want to take off my back pack to get my video camera. so I snapped a few pictures and waited to get the nerve to descend off the summit with Cody. I looked over at the ridge line descending to the saddle between Byers and Bills and that confirmed Cody could not be with me for this traverse. We then decided since Bottle and Ptarmigan Peaks were so close we would do those as well and that would clear my Saturday planed climb to return and do Bills Peak without the dog. Bottle and Ptarmigan Peaks are both class one 11ers, almost 12ers. We did three peaks that day. Byers, Bottle and Ptarmigan. It was a good and long day in the Vasquez Mountains.

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• Tony
• DiAngelo
• Vasquez
• Mountains
• Colorado
• Byers
• Peak
• Bottle
• Ptmarigan
• Hiking
• Climbing
• Mountaineering