PT13060B & PT12903

Date: 07/18/2021
Partner: Heather Ryan
Distance: 4 miles
Elevation Gain: 3200ft
Summits: PT13060B(Class 4+), PT12903 aka "Chicken Choss Knob Prime Benchmark" (Class 3)
Duration: 8 hours

From camp we started on the same talus hopping route to Moon Lake as we did for Clark the day before. Everything was going great when 40 minutes in, just before the lake, Kristi pulled a rock loose knocking her backwards and badly bruising her booty. After attempting to shake it, off Kristi wasn't feeling it and descided to hang at the lake for a bit then head back to camp. We agreed that Heather and I would continue with the day's plan.

We continued our talus hopping and climbed a loose gully to the Clark-PT12903 saddle where we got our first views of PT13060. What we saw was a significant snow filled gully that lead to PT13060's class 4+ east ridge. We were excited to use the cramps and axes we had packed in. We were also stoked that we had guessed right on the gully being snow filled. When there's an inset north facing couloir in the Snowmass zone that has been called a 'mud gully' in September... it likely has snow in mid July. Summer coolie bootin in baby!

After climbing the couloir we scrambled up the ridge. Lower on the ridge, just above the couloir, there were some moves that were on the higher end of class 4... possibly low 5... I dunno? If you want, all of this can be avoided by dropping further south before making your way to the summit. We however, were there for the scrambling and were being stingy with our vert.

PT13060 has two summits... the true summit is the second (northerly) summit which requires some additional scrambling to reach.

After taking in the views and signing the register we scrambled back down the ridge, ripped down the coolie and made our way to PT12903... the final summit of the trip.

PT12903 was fun to climb... much more fun that sections of it looked. The summit offered spectacular views of high points we had stood on earlier in the trip. However, I will say that descending the northeast ramp back camp was some of the worst scree I have experienced... kinda gave us a 'rat in a glue trap' feeling. Just.Can't.Escape. So brace yourself for that if you decide to bag this high twelver that we dubbed "Chicken Choss Knob Prime Benchmark".