I wanted to drive through Colorado to check out the University of Colorado in Boulder. I had a meeting with the Graduate coordinator there and decided that it would be a good idea to go to grad school even if it meant taking some classes at Community College to be elegible for the Civil Engineering department.I stopped by La Salle to see the Westover clan and then headed out toward Gould to camp. Passing through Cameron pass on Highway fourteen, the first thing to come into view is the square, craggy profile of Mt Richthofen.
I decided that I had lots of time and no particular reason to get to any particular place so I found a road leading off toward the mountain and parked. I wandered up some service roads and then started up a ravine until I could get up on the ridge line. I followed the ridge up to the jagged rocks of the summit started. I climbed up and down along the serrated edge of the ridge over rocks that looked solid but in some cases came loose in my hands and went rolling down the scree below. I came to a place where I would have to climb straight down about 10 ft cross about 10 ft of a tiny little saddle and then start climbing nearly straight up the last couple of hundred feet to the top. I thought I could do it but it would be dangerous with the loose rock, and I thought of a few good reasons not to risk my life that day and turned back.
Pictures: First - Mt Richthofen from the road where I decided I had to climb it; Second - The mountain from the ridge. I made it as high as the first big notch to the right of the summit, the third picture was taken in the second or third notch. Third- Looking south east (into Rocky Mt National Park) from a vantage high on Mt Richthofen.
