RT Length: 14.36 miles
Elevation Gain: 3659
I’ve hiked Mays Peak and Kineo Mountain several times, but always through North Cheyenne Canyon. They’re currently working on the road to North Cheyenne Canyon, so I decided to hike these peaks via Bear Creek. I’ve ever been to Bear Creek before, so I thought this would be fun.
I parked at pull off 3 and was on the trail at 6:15am.
I passed through a gate and followed the road
I came to a second gate, and continued on the road
The trail follows High Drive, a dirt road, for 2.6 miles. It had recently snowed, but it seemed yesterday several skiers packed it down after the snow had subsided.
After hiking 2.6 miles I came to the saddle of Mays Peak and Mt Buckhorn (unranked). Here I turned left and was pleasantly surprised to find a boot pack on the trail to Mays Peak
This trail didn’t go all the way to the summit, but instead wound around the mountain. At the southernmost point I left the trail and made my own trail to the summit, heading north up the hillside.
This is an easy summit, especially if you’ve summited before. No one had been here since the recent snow, so there were no tracks on the summit.
A few weeks ago I dropped a summit register off, so I went to go check on it. It was buried under some snow; I took it out and placed it on a rock. Still looking good!
The tree is still decorated for Christmas. I wonder if it’ll be decorated all year long?
I followed my tracks back down to the trail, and to the Buckskin/Mays Saddle
From the saddle I took Trail 667 southwest
I was delighted to find this trail also had a boot pack
Well, at least it had tracks for a little while. It seems the hiker ahead of me at some point got tired of trenching and turned around. So I started trenching.
I followed/trenched Trail 667 for 3 miles, until I made it to the 668/622/667 Junction. Here I turned left and headed east towards the summit of Kineo Mountain.
Did I mention the wind? It was very windy all day, even though I was below treeline. Since it had snowed recently, the wind blew all the snow off the trees. This snow kept hitting me in the face.
Here are some pictures of the way to the summit. I just kept trekking east
I made it to the summit and looked for the summit register, but it was buried somewhere under all that snow and I was unable to locate it.
The trek back was much easier than the trek in, as I just followed my footprints back to the Mays/Buckskin saddle
It was still windy
And it was warming up, so ice was getting stuck in my microspikes
I made it back to the saddle and took the road back to the trailhead. Here I saw more skiers hiking up the trail, a few dogs, and a man pulling a sled with a bunch of rocks in it so it would carry him down the mountain faster in his sled. I pointed out to him there were probably rocks at the top.
I made it back to the trailhead at 12:30pm, making this a 14.36 mile hike with 3659’ of elevation gain in 5 hours, 45 minutes.
Wild Wanderer 