GC6CQEB Alexander the Great
Type: Multi | Size: Small | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: icezebra11 @ | Hide Date: 03/06/2016 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N40° 25.363 W105° 14.583 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
             

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CONGRATULATIONS Denali41 on the FTF!!!

Alexander the Great was the great King of Macedon whose empire stretched from Egypt to India.  During his conquests he founded more than twenty cities that bore his name, the most famous being Alexandria in Egypt.  Alexander the Great has a local namesake also, Alexander Mountain.  This multi-cache will take you on an arduous trek to the vicinity of this peak.

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Alexander Mountain is one of Larimer County's and Colorado's lower ranked peaks.  At 7105 feet of elevation, it is number 224 of 255 ranked peaks in Larimer county and number 4085 in all of Colorado.  So getting to the top sounds easy, right?  Well those statistics are very deceiving.  Reaching the top of Alexander Mountain takes "great" effort.  On the route you will be faced with steep slopes, talus, scree, and thick brush.  After a successful summiting of Alexander you will definitely be "feeling it."  My shins were bloodied pushing through the tangled brush.

There is no trail, the entire route is off trail.  I have provided coordinates for parking and two possible starting points.  One route is the "Chockstone Route."  Head up the eastern gulch and a couple hundred yards after leaving the highway you will come to the chockstone.  Passing it requires a short class 4 scramble.  If you aren't comfortable doing that, I'd suggest the "Over the Ridge Route."  This route requires starting up the western gulch, going up and over the ridge back down to a point past the chockstone in the eastern gulch.

This is a three stage multi-cache.  The first two stages are duct taped pill vials.  The final stage is a small duct taped jar and has room for trackables.  In order to get to the final stage you must be proficient at route finding and you must be familiar with your GPSr settings, thus the Difficulty rating. 

Be careful getting to the top.  Let someone know where you'll be.  Even though it's so close to town it is quite remote.  You aren't likely to meet anyone along the way.  Locate the final container somewhere in the vicinity of the summit and after signing the log visit the summit cairn.  Alexander is a forested peak but if you move to the right location you will get splendid views of Loveland and the eastern plains beyond.  Have fun and be safe!

Additional Waypoints

P06CQEB - Parking #1
N 40° 25.212 W 105° 14.585

P16CQEB - Parking #2
N 40° 25.315 W 105° 14.430

R06CQEB - Over the Ridge Gulch
N 40° 25.225 W 105° 14.570

R16CQEB - Chockstone Gulch
N 40° 25.260 W 105° 14.515

04/17/2017 By Monk1122
Was out here waster weekend with Waawhoo and msstrong. What an adventure this one was. Saw some amazing views while catching our breath on this beast of a cache. TFTC

04/15/2017 By waawhoo
Wow I wish I had an excuse for what happened but I don't. Msstrong log says it all. I'm glad I finally got this one off my list now. But because of the views I might be back another day! Thanks for this great multi cache.

04/15/2017 By msstrong
Did this one with Waawhoo and Monk1122, (my grandson in law). We did stage one a week ago as a test hike and then worked on solving Cache-master and The master cacher of Alexander, Denali41's tribute to icezebra11. Then we decided we were going to go get all of them what a fun day, had some problems at the top trying to overthink things as usual, come to find out, we had stopped and placed a backpack within 3' of the final container and didn't even see it. So we scratched her head and recalculated and and after about 45 minutes finally called for help found out we've made some minor mistakes by overthinking things and went over to where backpack was in bingo there was. Just the older I get the more common this is LOL

03/15/2017 By Path Pacer
I know I said I was going to do these a year ago, but stuff kept getting in the way. However, today was finally the day, so I headed out early to make the Hwy 34 construction convoy and started up the rock chute while it was still cool. I've been up that chute before, but I had no idea how much worse it was going to get before it got better! I think I spent the first hour climbing hand over foot just to get out of the drainage, dreading the idea of having to go back down it.

The multi stages were straightforward (thanks for the pictures), especially after doing so many of Tahosa's caches. No way you're going to trip me up with that. ;)

After the drama at Alexander the Fake, it was easy-peasy to pop over to the real summit and find the final. I never did find the summit log; I assume it was near the cairn, but I didn't see anything.

All told, it took me 3.5 hours to get to the top and about 1.5 hours to come down. Descending the scree in the drainage was terrifying, but I made it. As usual, I just followed the dog. She's good at finding the best route back to the car.

Thanks for placing these. It gives you a real sense of achievement to tag caches that are so much work, although I have to agree with Denali about not wanting to climb this mountain again!

11/05/2016 By jaredandkayla
I found stage 1 for this one a long time ago when I was finding another nearby cache. I decided to save the remainder of this cache for later in the year. I knew they'd be closing the canyon so I decided to focus my recreation for the summer further up the canyon and save this one for a sunny day after the upper reaches of the canyon were no longer accessible. Well we've had no shortage of sunny days so today is the one I chose. This is a really cool mountain and very tough hike. The views and setting up here are worth it. Thanks for leading me here. I had my hands on the final two stages of this one today and both are in great shape.