Northern Sangres Traverse - A Colorado Adventure

Please join us Wednesday, Feburary 18, 2015 at 7 pm at the Fuller Lodge (Los Alamos) for an exciting presentation by Norbert Ensslin and Nathan Moody - two local, active LAM members.

(Special Note:  This program is dedicated to Don Liska, a great Mountaineer and climbing partner, who passed away in December and who was very interested in this traverse.  In honor of Don, and to remind us of experiences we might want to share at a later ceremony, Norbert will start the program by showing a few slides highlighting some of Don's many outdoor adventures.)

At the northern end of Colorado's Alamosa Valley, the Sangre de Cristo mountain range ends in a compact, 20-mile-long line of peaks.  This beautiful ridge line dominates the view to the East for anyone driving through the little town of Villa Grove on the way to Poncha Pass.  Over the years, many Mountaineers on their way to climb Fourteeners in the summer or do hut trips in the winter have stared at this ridge and wondered what it would be like to traverse the whole length of the ridge.  How long would it take?  Where would you get water?  How would you get on the ridge and off again?  Last September, two small groups of Mountaineers, including Norbert and Nathan, set out to find the answers to these questions.  This program will present what they saw and did and discovered on this adventure, especially the answer to that classic Mountaineers question, "How hard could it be?"

Photo:  The Northen Sangres ridgeline.

Photo:  Approaching Hunts Peak at sunset.