Mount of the Holy Cross

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Mount of the Holy Cross
Mount of the Holy Cross in 1874, taken by William Henry Jackson
Elevation	14,005 feet (4,269 m)^[1]^[2]
Location	Eagle County, Colorado, USA
Range	Sawatch Range
Prominence	2,111 feet (643 m)^[2]
Coordinates	39°28′01″N 106°28′54″W / 39.46694, -106.48167Coordinates: 39°28′01″N 106°28′54″W / 39.46694, -106.48167^[1]^[3]
Topo map	USGS Mount of the Holy Cross
First ascent	1873
Easiest route	North ridge: hike/scramble ( YDS Class 2)^[4]

Mount of the Holy Cross is the northernmost fourteen thousand foot mountain in the Sawatch Range, part of the Rocky Mountains in the US state of Colorado. It is located in the Holy Cross Wilderness near Holy Cross City (a ghost town) and in Eagle County. It was named for the distinctive cross-shaped snowfield on the northeast face. The mountain was formerly a U.S. National Monument but lost that status in 1950 because the number of visitors to the mountain, and the nearby "Pilgrim's Hut" had waned, and the expense of fulltime staff could not be justified.

This mountain has been much celebrated in the past by painters and photographers. The first known publicly available photograph was published in National Geographic magazine. Thomas Moran depicted the mountain in a well-known oil painting, which now now is part of the collection of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, OK.^[5] It is still much photographed but it is not as well known today as it was in the past.

Nearby features include Bowl of Tears Lake, directly under the east face of the peak, Tuhare Lakes, in a cirque that lies south of a significant subpeak, and several other lakes. Notable locations within 35 mi (56 km) include the Dotsero Volcano (near Interstate 70), Vail and Aspen. US 24 runs near the peak through Gilman.

The first recorded ascent of Holy Cross was in 1873, by F.V. Hayden and photographer W.H. Jackson during one of Hayden's geographical surveys. However the peak may well have been ascended previously by miners or Native Americans.^[6] The first winter ascent of the peak was made in 1943 by Russel Keene and Howard Freedman of the 10th Mountain Division, then stationed at Camp Hale.^[6]

Holy Cross can be climbed by at least four different routes, with the easiest and most common route being the North Ridge, which involves 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of vertical gain over 11.5 mi (18.5 km) and is rated YDS Class 2 for moderate scrambling. The Cross Couloir route forms the vertical portion of the famous cross feature, and provides an advanced snow climb or extreme ski descent.^[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Holy Cross on Topozone
^ ^a ^b Peakbagger.com - Mount of the Holy Cross. Retrieved 31 March 2007.
^ NGS web site (access "Datasheets" and search for "Mount of the Holy Cross")
^ Holy Cross on Summitpost
^ Patricia Trenton and Peter H. Hassrick, The Rocky Mountains: A Vision for Artists in the Nineteenth Century, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983, ISBN 0-8061-1808-3, pp. 202–203.
^ ^a ^b ^c Louis W. Dawson II, Dawson's Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners: Volume I, The Northern Peaks, Blue Clover Press, 1994, ISBN 0-9628867-1-8, pp. 36–44.