antler – Wild Wanderer

RT Length: 11.82 miles

Elevation Gain: 3452’

I parked about 3 miles past Cottonwood Lake, in a small parking area where 344 and 348 intersect.

I was on the trail at 4:30am, following 348 south. There is a lot of dispersed camping in this area.

Almost immediately I came to Cottonwood Creek, which I was going to have to cross. I put on my creek crossing shoes and rolled up my pants to my thighs. My pants still got wet on the crossing, as the water was high.

Safely on the other side, I put my hiking shoes back on, and continued to follow the 4WD road as it switchbacked up the side of the mountain. There was one more (small) creek crossing, about half a mile away from Cottonwood Creek

I followed 348 all the way to treeline, for 5 miles

Someone had a rough night… blood and what looked like fur from an ungulate.

It was easy to follow the road all the way to the saddle

Just before the saddle I saw a game trail, and took it to the saddle instead, since it looked like a shortcut (it was)

Once on the saddle, I could see another trail that led to the ridge

I followed the trail to the ridge, where it abruptly stopped

I then turned and followed the ridge southwest. The terrain changed from tundra to class 2 rock hopping, but was very straightforward.

I summited PT 13332 at 7:30am

13332:

The summit register was shattered, and while I found a pen on the ground, the paper was long gone, so I left another register. From the summit I could see a cabin on the road I took in. I would have passed it if I’d stuck to the road, but I’d taken the side trail instead. I planned to head down there and see what it was all about.

I turned and retraced my steps back to the saddle

And then I aimed for the cabin below.

I was halfway there when I spotted an elk shed a few yards away. I looked around for more antlers, as I know elk usually shed both within a few hundred yards of each other, but didn’t see any more.

I continued on towards the cabin

For those of you wondering, this is what it looked like.

I then followed 348 north back to the trailhead

I put on my creek crossing shoes again to cross Cottonwood Creek, and kept them on for the short distance back to my truck.

I made it back to my truck at 9:45am, making this an 11.82 mile hike with 3452’ of elevation gain in 5 hours 15 minutes. This was probably the easiest 13er I’ve done in years. I didn’t see another person, or vehicle, all day.

On to the next trailhead!

RT Length: 2 miles
Elevation Gain: 828’
The start of this hike was a little fuzzy. I parked my truck at the dead end of Independence Avenue, near an old, boarded up house.

We started out by going through an unlocked gate and just heading up the mountain, hiking southeast. In fact, the entire hike to the summit you just need to continue heading southeast and you’ll make it there at about a mile’s distance.

There’s actually a drainage here that makes the path easy to follow

We headed up the mountainside through grass and into some aspens. Here we found a mule deer antler!

As we entered the pine trees the snow became thick and we needed to put on our snowshoes. I was glad we’d brought them, as from the truck the hike looked clear of snow.

The pine trees ended up becoming very thick with young growth. So thick it became difficult to find a hiking route.

Eventually the pine trees gave way to a flat ridge less dense with vegetation

We wanted to remember our exit point, so I brought out some of the surveying tape I’d pre-cut for just this purpose and we marked a tree

We followed the ridge east now until we came to a wide cairn.

It was difficult on this flat mesa to figure out where the true summit was, but we figured the cairn was a likely indication. There was no summit register, and we’d forgotten to bring one, so we just took a picture

And headed back the way we came

It was surprisingly easy to find our yellow marking tape, and from there we just followed our tracks in the snow back down (we removed the tape, as we didn’t think it would be useful to anyone else and were practicing leave no trace)

We made it out of the trees and back into the grass. From here we could see my truck, so it was an easy exit

I kept looking for another deer antler, but unfortunately didn’t come across one. This is the first deer antler I’ve ever found on a hike, and I do a lot of hikes!
This was a quick, 2 mile hike through some soft snow and densely wooded areas. Our third summit of the day, now we were off to attempt our fourth! Here’s a topo of the route:

*If you plan to do this hike, please get the appropriate permissions before potentially roaming onto private property.

Tag: antler

PT 13332

Big Bull Mountain – 10,832’