GC7X7XG Mount Ouray!
Type: Traditional | Size: Small | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: Denali41 @ | Hide Date: 08/31/2018 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N38° 25.358 W106° 13.477 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
                             

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I had a very pleasant but tiring experience with icezebra11 hiking to the summit of Mount Ouray, the southernmost mountain in the Sawatch Range.  It’s a “Centennial” peak–that is, one of the highest 100 mountains in Colorado.  It’s elevation is 13,971 feet, so it’s 29 feet lower than a 14er.  That elevation gives it a ranking of number 58 highest of Colorado’s mountains.

I’ve expected to get to the top of Ouray for a long time, but some things in recent years have unfortunately disrupted my quest to climb all of the top 100 in the state.  But things are settling down for me somewhat, and I now have 92 of them completed; I will continue working at this objective.  We sat adjacent to the summit cairn and gazed out on a landscape of spectacular mountains in all directions.  It was fun to review in my mind the hikes I’ve made to the tops of so many of them, and to recall particularly the friends who climbed and shared these past backcountry hiking and climbing experiences with me.

Well, it wasn’t too long before I concluded that a geocache should be hidden near the top of this wonderful mountain–heck, it would be an added enticement to adventurous geocachers to get to this stunning location.  So I asked icezebra11 to turn his back and look in a particular direction while I went to hide the container. I found a good place for the cache, hid it, recorded the coordinates, rechecked the coordinates, and returned to the summit cairn. I gave Brad my GPSr and told him to search for the cache.  He did.  His find confirmed the accuracy of my coordinates, and earned him an independent, unassisted find on the cache.  He made the challenging climb to the summit, and I see no reason why he should need to do it again for a cache that he found with no clues or help from me.

The cache is a small container wrapped in black tape that's hidden under, of all things, a good-sized, blocky rock.  It’s covered by several smaller rocks. It’s hidden on the SE side of the rock–the side facing away from the summit cairn. For additional clues, the cache is about 50 feet from the wooden post in the summit cairn.  It’s 38 feet from the Mt Ouray Ref 1 disc.  After you’ve found the cache and signed the log, give yourself another challenge: find the actual Mt Ouray Benchmark.  Locate the Ref 1 disc and the Ref 2 disc. Walk around for awhile and you will discover these "perfect" discs embedded in the top of rocks. Use the directional arrows on these to point you to the actual BM.  It’s an interesting one!

Enjoy your experiences at the summit of this mountain.  You worked hard to get to the top!  Be careful on your descent.  This is certainly a backcountry cache.

09/08/2018 By ernie66
Thanks, WingsAndTales, for pointing out this cache or I might not have seen it. Life's been so busy! I am leaving Sunday at 6am for a business trip so Saturday was my only opportunity this week. To my surprise, estes01 accepted a spur-of-the-moment invitation and we were soon on the way to Marshall Pass.

Three bull moose greeted us in the parking area and even showed off their skills a little. Later, we found out that today was the first day of archery season for moose. Dudes, don't hang out here - run away!!

In due time, we arrived at the summit and started our search for the cache. Seeing a couple rocks stuck in a crack, I pulled them out and saw a small tin behind. "Found it"! Well, not so fast. What we found was not the cache but a memorial left by George Connolly of Salida, CO in 1940.

Wait, what?

Yes, an envelope addressed to Mr. Connolly with a 1 cent and a 1/2 cent postage stamp and dated by the addressee October 12, 1940 was left inside that crack encased in a Prince Albert tobacco tin. From the condition of the tin, I don't think it has been disturbed since. Incredible!

Once we got over the shock, we found the geocache not 1 foot from the Connolly stash. I wanted to leave a TB, but neither of the ones I had would fit. They would have fit in an ammo can .

Thanks, denali41, for a memorable day!

09/08/2018 By estes01
Early morning text from ernie66, he's going to Mount Ouray and am I interested? Ugh. I am not an early riser and was only given 30 minutes to get it together. He said it would be easy and take no more than 5 hours round trip. Boy, was he wrong. OK...start time ended up being a little after 10. Thank goodness the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful day because we got back to the car around 5. I took a multitude of breaks along the way..."WAIT ERNIE! My heart rate is 162! My max rate before heart attack is 153." This, of course, became a huge area of concern (mostly for me.) This is the first hike I've done this year above 10,000 feet. Stupid, but you know how I feel about those high caches. Perhaps I should wait a bit before thanking the CO...at least until the pain goes away from my knees and my heart stops skipping.

Amazing hike! So much more difficult than anticipated. The Fall colors and the varied terrain made it a spectacular hike. And the MOOSE? Did I mention the moose? 3 bull moose. No sooner had we parked when we heard a loud cracking noise like someone splitting wood. It turned out to be 3 bull moose sparring about 100 feet away. We got a thorough looking over by all 3 bull moose and were found harmless and not attractive. Wish we could post the videos!

As for the cache and what else we found, I will leave those details up to Ernie. So I'm going to thank you, but please don't get carried away with this kind of altitude. You know what I mean?

09/05/2018 By icezebra11
Denali41 and I had a fantastic trip to the southern Sawatch range and it was a special day on the mountain as we made the successful climb to the summit of Mount Ouray!

In the cache write-up, Denali mentions "some things in recent years" had prevented him from completing the highest 100 CO peaks and I'll add a little more on that... Last year Denali climbed Grizzly Peak which, at 13,988 feet, is the highest of all ranked 13ers in CO. On that climb some of those "things" totally wiped him out physically and because it was so hard on him, he said it would be his last time ever above 13,200 feet. When he told me this I could see that he was extremely dejected by the thought that his high elevation days appeared to be over. Climbing has always been a huge part of his life and I believe the mental impact on him was even higher than the physical impact.

Well if you know Denali, you know he is a very driven man! Once he sets his mind to something he'll do everything in his power to make it happen. Over the winter he decided he wasn't going to let these "things" beat him and that he was going to continue his quest to finish the Centennials. So this spring and early summer he worked hard to regain his strength and conditioning, increasing the length and elevation of his training climbs to the point where he was ready to go for Centennial number 92. He asked me if I'd like to accompany him on a climb of Ouray and I said "absolutely!"

We decided on the west ridge route so we drove to Marshall Pass and then up the 4wd road to it's end at approximately 11,400 feet where we set up camp. The next morning we started up the mountain at 6 am. We had great weather for our climb. Denali set the pace at his comfort level and we steadily headed up the slope. When he is at his comfort pace, he can go for a long time without stopping and that's what we did. We kept on climbing with breaks only for clothing adjustments and nutrition. Denali continued to push himself up the mountain with great determination and at 9:30 we stepped onto the summit!!! It was a wonderful moment! We were the first people on the summit that morning. After about 10 minutes with the summit to ourselves we were joined by three people with their puppies.

Denali hid the cache while I chatted with the folks that had joined us on the peak. One of them was from back east and it was his first time on a peak higher than Mt Washington. He was stoked! Denali then returned from hiding the cache and the rest is as he described. I found the cache with only coordinates which is even less help than is on this cache page, I had no description of distances from the post and reference marker.

After I located the cache and signed the log (I think I put the wrong date down) we enjoyed finding the Ouray benchmark while we were on top. It's a unique one I hadn't seen before. Then after a snack and contacts with our loved ones to let them know we made it safely, we headed on back down the mountain to our camp. The whole climb went very well! Denali says in his write-up that he was fatigued but he sure didn't seem to show it. In fact, the next day we climbed Un-named 13,626 (a Bi-Centennial) and found the very lonely sapphyre cache.

Congratulations Steve on successfully "getting back on the horse"! I look forward to accompanying you on many, if not all, of your eight remaining Centennials!!!

09/04/2018 By Heartland Cacher
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