Mount Princeton and Its Satellite, Tigger Peak

When: June 2008
Partners: DB
Route: East Ridge (Class 2)
Mileage/Gain: 8/3,500

DB cruising up the East Ridge of Mount Princeton

After a day of soaking and people-watching at the Mount Princeton Hot Springs, DB and I again set out for more mountain fun. Initially following the old road up toward 12,000 feet, we picked up the trail that would take us up the mountain. Soon, though, the trail, still covered in snow in a few spots, became obscured and tediously talus-y in a few spots.
DB making her way up the mountain

With plane window-like views as you near the top, the enormity of this giant mountain becomes more and more apparent as the air thins.
Looking south to Mount Antero from just below the summit of Mount Princeton

Then, just below the top, with splendid views of Mount Antero to the south, I stumbled across a memorial plaque for Catherine Pugin, a woman tragically killed by lightning in that very spot barely thirteen years earlier.
The memorial plaque for Catherine Pugin

Enjoying the summit of Princeton for a bit with a strange man who (inaccurately) told us he'd summited in only two hours or something from the pavement some 5,200 feet below us, DB and I dropped back down and headed across the ridge to Tigger Peak, Mount Princeton's locally named southeastern satellite peak.
Nearing Tigger Peak's summit as Mount Princeton looms

Rather a nicer peak than Princeton in certain ways, we enjoyed it tremendously. Dropping down Tigger Peak's southeast ridge, we again picked up the old road near Bristlecone Park and hiked out.
DB descending Tigger Peak

TOPO