Devil’s Airmchair Route
~10 miles
Mount Ouray was to be our acclimation hike to prep us for backpacking in Colorado. Five of us—Uncle John, Dad, Dave, Greg and I—and my dog Hunter, crowded into Uncle John’s truck and drove the two hours from Pueblo to the trailhead.
Our goal was to complete the lesser-used east ridge ascent and northeast ridge descent for the circuit tour of the “Devil’s Armchair.” The route promised an old bristlecone forest, and it was scenic—but short-lived, as we entered the basin above timberline.
The route up was obvious: we took the path of least resistance up grassy slopes intermixed with easy talus. After reaching the east ridge, we took a long break to recharge, then followed the well-made switchbacks along the talus ridge all the way to the top.
We stepped onto the summit at noon, five hours into the hike, and took time there for a photo op and another nice break.
Now, the familiar Ed Viesturs quote: “Getting to the top is optional; Getting down is mandatory.”
From the top, the going was tedious down the northern shoulder of the mountain, then we came out onto a gentler grass slope leading down to the northeast ridge. Thunderstorms were building around us as we approached the spine of the ridge, but thankfully spared us as we continued.
From route descriptions I had read, I understood the trip down the northeast ridge was to be a class 2 talus-walk. Sure, I had seen a couple cliffs and towers along the ridge, but I was sure these would be easily bypassed on the north side.
Greg and Hunter approached the ridge first with me. It narrowed immediately into a bit of a tightrope, and I had to lift Hunter up and over several rocky obstacles, which were exposed on both sides. As the others approached, I peered down the northern slopes and spotted what looked like a possible trail to bypass the roughest parts of the ridge ahead.
We all detoured down onto the loose talus that made up the northern slopes, but what I had hoped was the correct trail turned out to be probably just a goat path. I continued trying to route-find forward along the steep and loose slopes, but the progress was slow and tedious.
Suddenly, I heard a loud “THUD.” I turned to see Uncle John flipping around on a giant boulder and body-slamming it a second time before swinging around the lower corner of the rock, barely catching his balance with his foot and grabbing onto the boulder. If he hadn’t caught himself there, he would have been falling much farther.
The fall was over in a quick second. There were no broken bones, he assured us. No head injury. He was in pain in a lot of places, but nothing seemed too serious…
We all crowded around him right away to make sure everything was okay. As we approached him, he said “Guys, I have some bad news. I have a deep cut on my leg.” Sure enough, his right sock was soaked with blood. I watched as he lowered his sock to reveal a wide cut which was bleeding heavily.
As Dave and the others tended to the wound, my mind turned immediately to finding the correct route. I still wasn’t sure the best way around the ridge, but this sure didn’t seem to be it. He had slipped on some loose, sloped rock, and that was all that I could find on these slopes.
Eventually, I found a decent route back onto the ridge, which did bypass the worst of the difficulties. Things were starting to look better as we all finally made our way back to the ridge. The bleeding continued, but the blood was mostly clotted now, and Uncle John seemed to be feeling fine.
Now, however, we were all out of liquids. Having expected to be back to water before long, all of us had chugged the remains of our drinks in the above-average heat of the day. Dehydration started to set in, and Dave was hit the hardest.
Trying to find a non-loose route down the front side of the slopes, back into the middle of the “Devil’s Armchair”, turned out to be an impossible challenge. The best we could do was follow grassy slopes intermixed with pebbles, until finally crossing into the fields of giant talus shards in the lower basin. Using my GPS track from where we had gone up earlier, I finally just took us on a bushwhacking shortcut across the forested slopes to regain our original trail. Unfortunately, it was much farther down until I was finally able to reach flowing water. Hunter stopped for a nice long drink, and I filled everyone’s water bottles with what we all agreed was the best-tasting water we’d ever had.
We didn’t reach the trailhead until 6pm, having taken an hour longer on the hike out than on the ascent.
Thankfully we all made it out to the truck in one piece, although Dave was quite ill by this point and Uncle John’s wound was still bleeding.
We made our way to the Salida ER, where everyone would get fixed up. Dave was feeling much better by later in the evening, and Uncle John walked out of the hospital with six stitches—3 internal where the muscle had been torn, and 3 outer stitches. He had a lot of other scratches and bruises, but nothing serious. We ended the day thankful that there were no injuries worse than that.