El Paso County Highpoint – Wild Wanderer

“Notch Mountain” – 9665’

RT Length: .64 miles

Elevation Gain: 359’

Second up for the day was Notch Mountain. This was a very quick hike, and I’d recommend linking all three up together (or more). Just for reference, I hiked Tuesday Peak, Notch Mountain, and Ormes Peak today. From where I was parked for Tuesday Peak I drove 1.15 miles further north on Rampart Range Road. If you’re starting from Rampart Range Road in Garden of the Gods it will be 13.15 miles total to the parking area for Notch Mountain. As I was driving, I could see “Notch Mountain” ahead of me.

I parked at the base of the ridge and started hiking. This is a quick and easy ridge hike, starting in the burn area

The most difficult part of this hike was navigating all of the deadfall. I just kept heading northeast along the ridge.

This brought me to a rocky area

And then, I was suddenly at the summit. The summit is relatively large and flat.

I took a photo to prove I’d summited, and left a summit register (no marker on this peak)

The views aren’t that good here, because the trees on the summit obscure them. The good part is there are actually trees at the summit that made it through the fires

Here’s a view of Tuesday Peak from the summit of “Notch Mountain”

I turned and headed back down the ridge.

And my truck

The entire hike probably took 20 minutes.

Here’s a picture of the route from Tuesday Peak

Now, on to the next trailhead!

Tuesday Peak – 9620’

RT Length: 1.49 miles

Elevation Gain: 323’

It’s springtime, and in the spring I either travel to state highpoints, or stay local and hit county highpoints. They traditionally open Rampart Range Road every year on April 1, and when I heard the road was open, I decided to take advantage of a beautiful (if windy) day and hit some highpoints. This is the first of 3 El Paso County highpoints I hiked this day.

I started at the southern entrance to Rampart Range Road, near balanced rock inside Garden of the Gods.

As the sun rose, I was able to see a lot of the Waldo Canyon burn scar. It doesn’t look like much has grown back in the 9 years since the fire.

I drove along the 2WD dirt road for 12 miles, and parked at a small parking area for trail 644. There’s a plaque here commemorating the road

I gathered my hear and continued hiking along the road to the trailhead. It was a short distance (less than a quarter of a mile), and in the summer, you might be able to park at the actual start.

The trailhead starts at a bend in the road, marked by broken barbed wire and hot pink surveyor’s tape. On a topo map it says this is 4WD road 300Q. It’s been a very, very long time since this was ever a road. Now it looks like a teenage hangout/camping area, littered with broken glass and discarded remnants of campfire circles.

I headed northeast, following the ridge to the right

I came to a small dip, where I could clearly see the peak

Now I stayed to the left (north) side of the ridge. There were a lot of downed trees, but nothing that kept me from making it to the peak. There was snow here, but not enough to need traction. I did posthole a bit. I aimed for the small saddle

Once at the saddle there was some class 2 scrambling to do to make it to the summit. This is much easier than it looks.

Here’s a picture of the summit

I knew I was at the summit because there was a summit marker. I left a summit register at the marker

And took a picture at the summit with Pikes Peak in the background

It was very windy, so I didn’t stay long, and quickly retraced my steps back to the saddle. Here’s the overall route

And step by step

Back down the dip, where there are some very faint tire tracks that have now become social/game trails

And following the ridge southwest to the road

I then followed the road back to my truck.

This was a quick and simple hike. Here’s a topo map of my route (I parked just before 644):

Now, on to the next trailhead!

Marys Mountain – 9860’ and Sheep Mountain – 9820’

RT Length: 12.77 miles

Elevation Gain: 4823’

These peaks have been on my short list since last year, when I attempted to hike them in winter by following the cog railway (which was under construction and not running). I learned two things: There was too much snow to summit this time of year from the cog, and the route is seriously steep! My legs were burning after just 2 miles.

I’ve been hiking in this area the past few weeks and was surprised at how little snow there was, so I figured now was a great time to attempt this hike. I parked at the Barr Trail lot, paid the $10 fee at the machine, and was on my way at 6am.

This time, instead of following the cog railway, I followed Barr Trail for just over 3 miles. This is a class 1 trail that is well maintained. Spikes are recommended in winter.

After hiking for 3 miles I came to a junction for the experimental forest and Barr Camp. Here I stayed on Barr trail, turning left. The trail became an ice skating rink here, but not for long.

I only stayed on this trail for a few yards, turning left onto unmarked trail 706. This trail can be difficult to notice if you aren’t looking for it, and this is the first time I’ve seen tire tracks on this road. It looks to be an old 4WD road that leads to a functional pipeline, and these tracks looked to be the first made here in quite a while.

I followed Trail 706 for about a mile and a half as it wound around the south side of the mountain.

The road ended and I crossed this pipeline bridge. Gingerly. I don’t think this bridge has many seasons left.

After crossing the bridge I picked up the trail again and followed it a short distance to the cog railway.

Once making it to the Cog Railway there’s a sign saying from here on out it’s private property

No matter though, because I wasn’t heading up the Cog. Instead, I crossed the tracks, passing this sign

I then headed south, aiming for the ridge and continuing south until I reached Marys Mountain

This required a lot of bushwhacking, and the brush was thick in areas

When I came to the top of the ridge there was a rock outcropping. I climbed to the top, only to realize the summit was on the outcropping further south. So, basically, don’t climb the first outcropping you see.

Instead, skirt it to the left and climb to the proper summit. Here I am, on the correct summit, looking back

It was cold and windy on the summit, so I placed a summit register at the highest point, and turned and headed towards Sheep Mountain.

Here’s an overall view of the route to Sheep Mountain from Marys Mountain. Take a good look from here because there are a lot of rock formations to navigate

To do this I had to lose 820’ of elevation as I descended northeast towards the creek and Dark Canyon

Once at the low point I crossed the creek and continued heading northeast towards the summit of Sheep Mountain.

There was a lot of bushwhacking and rocks to contend with here as well

The summit was rocky as well. I walked all over the summit just to make sure I truly summited.

Here’s looking back at Marys from Sheep Mountain. Statistics say Marys Mountain is taller than Sheep Mountain, but to me, Sheep felt taller.

Once again, I left a summit register and was on my way

This time I headed northwest down the slope, aiming for the cog railway below.

Sections here were steep, and I was glad I’d hiked Marys first.

Once back near the cog I once again crossed the creek on a log near a picnic table, and picked up Trail 706

I followed Trail 706, crossed the sketchy pipeline bridge again, and continued on to Barr Trail.

Once on Barr Trail I followed it east for 3 miles, back to the Barr Trail parking lot.

I made it back to the parking area at noon, making this a 12.77 mile hike with 4823’ of elevation gain in 6 hours. I really liked this route, and recommend it instead of hiking the cog.

8130

RT Length: 4.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 1742’

It was COLD when we woke up this morning, but thankfully, the heater did it’s job.

However, unlike yesterday when I woke up and got up with my alarm, today I decided I needed another hour of sleep. So we didn’t make it to the trailhead until much later than we’d wanted (we got the last spot in the parking lot).

The trail was well marked and easy to follow. Every time there was an option (junction) we turned left, following the mountain and heading up.

We even encountered some nuns. At first I thought they were hikers dressed as the grim reaper (hey, it’s been going on with this whole Coronavirus thing). They told us to have a blessed day.

You hit a kind of saddle after 1.6 miles. Here’s a basic overview of the rest of the route

The tricky part is knowing when to veer off trail. After hiking for 2.1 miles along this trail you turn right and bushwhack northeast up the mountain, or use one of the several of available game trails. All are equally steep. We took a different one up and back so we’d have a couple of good gpx routes.

At the top you’ll come to a boulder, and yes, this boulder is the highpoint.

There’s a class 4 chimney you need to climb to get to the top (towards the left… the boulder on the right isn’t the summit).

Some people might consider this class 3, but to anyone under 6 feet I can assure you, it’s class 4 and requires commitment.

There was a summit register at the top with tons of cool stuff inside.

We headed back down a slightly different way to the main trail

And easily followed it back to the section 16 trailhead

Note: the elevation gain was constant and more difficult than anticipated, especially for such a short hike. Here’s my topo of the route:

Now, on to the next trailhead!

Mt Rosa – 11,499 and Rain Benchmark – 11,310

RT Length: 6.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 2520’
Thinking this would be an easy hike I got up at 2am and worked out on the treadmill for a while before heading over to Steffens house at 4am. His truck is lifted and we wanted to see how it handled as compared to mine on the 4WD dirt road (pretty similar actually). We started from Frosty Park, the same place we began last week. Rain was predicted by 1pm so we wanted to be on the trail early. We started at 6am when it was just light enough not to need flashlights, crossing a fence and hiking east along a faint trail.

I was immediately a bit upset, as one of my microspikes had broken. I could still wear the spike, but the chain was loose and it made an irritating clanking sound every time my foot hit the ground. Mental note: get new spikes before my next hike.
We turned right onto trail 672 and began retrenching an old trench, following the mountainside and losing elevation as we went.

After 1.5 miles of hiking we turned right (south) onto 673 and encountered a lot of snow.

In some places an old trench was visible so we tried to follow that whenever possible, but at other times we just made a new trench. Snowshoes weren’t needed this early in the morning.

There was a windswept area

And then more snow.

Last time I summited Mt Rosa I summited from the south side (same trail at this point) but this time the trail wasn’t visible, so we just went straight up the north side of the mountain

The summit was windswept and clear.

We took a summit shot and stayed for a few minutes, since it was such a nice day

There was no summit register so we left one, and built up the summit cairn while we were at it.

Mt Rosa:

Heading back down was a breeze, as we just followed our previous tracks

Ok, time for the next peak. It takes so long to drive out here and the summits are so short it’s worth it to try to get multiple peaks in in a day. We drove back down 379, noticing there weren’t nearly as many people out as there had been last week. We only passed 1 vehicle, and last time we’d passed dozens.

Turned right onto Old Stage Road, we then followed the road for a few miles to 376, turned right again, and drove for 1.9 miles before parking on the side of the road.

We started out by bushwhacking east, following a gully up the mountainside.

This gully had more snow than we’d anticipated, so we stayed to the left of it. There was a little bit of snow here, and a lot of fallen trees.

We made it to about 10250’ and decided to cut across the mountain and head southeast towards the saddle. Once again, no trail, and lots of downed trees. We came across another gully that led towards the saddle and decided to mark our exit so we’d know how to make our way back. We found this cool root that looked like a bighorn sheep skull and used that to mark our place.

We continued east up the gully on what kind of looked like a trail

Things changed when we hit the saddle: snowshoes became necessary

We donned our snowshoes (thank you Steffen for fixing mine!) and started up the ridge that led to the summit.

The snow just seemed to get thicker and thicker the further we went, and several times I thought we’d need to turn back, but we just zig-zagged our tracks and kept pressing forward.

To the right of the snow is a rocky area. The summit is at the southwest point

And check this out: there was a summit marker AND two summit registers!

Unfortunately, the views of Pikes and Almagre were interrupted by trees

The clouds were forming quickly so we didn’t stay too long on the summit. The snow was helpful on our way back, as we just followed our tracks back to the saddle

And then we followed our makeshift bighorn sheep cairn across the mountainside and back down the gully. There was less snow here, and we were surprised every so often to find our tracks!

Following the first gully back down was easy: we just stayed to the right of the snow

This led us back to the road and Steffen’s truck.

Here are the topo maps for the hikes
Rosa:

Rain Benchmark:

I’m not quite sure on the time for this hike, and to be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention because about halfway back to Old Stage Road we were stopped due to a tow truck blocking the road.

We parked the truck and got out to see what was going on. Apparently someone was driving too fast on the dirt road last night; his truck launched and hit trees before going over the edge and landing in the creek. Check out how high those tree marks are!!! The driver was alone and miraculously unhurt. He spent the night in his vehicle and climbed for help this morning. We hadn’t come across him because we’d decided to hike Rosa first.

We sat and watched them try to remove the truck for about half an hour.

Eventually they decided their tow truck wasn’t large enough and they’d need to come back with a bigger vehicle. Stay safe out there driving my friends!

Tuckaway Mountain – 10,820

RT Length: 12.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 4220’
Partner: Steffen

Third time’s a charm! For so many reasons…

I’ve attempted this peak on 2 other occasions. One time a few years ago I thought I’d summited (more on that later) and last week I turned around due to deteriorating snow conditions. Today I’m glad to say I had a successful summit!

I drove to Steffen’s house at 4:30am and we made it to the North Cheyenne Mountain gate by 5am, but unfortunately, the gate was locked. I guess it didn’t open until 6am? Oh well, we had a plan B, so we drive down Old Stage road for about 45 minutes, intent on Frosty’s Park and hiking Mt Rosa or Almaghre (or both). About 5 minutes from making it to the trailhead Steffen realized he’d forgotten his hiking boots. Drat! We would have to drive back and get them. As I said, third times a charm, and we arrived at the (now open) North Cheyenne Canyon Trailhead at 7am and were on the trail by 7:20am. It was already light out and I had serious doubts we’d summit today due to warm snow, but at least we’d get in a good hike.

We wore our microspikes the entire way, even though they weren’t always needed. I’ve done this hike several times, so I won’t go into a detailed description of the route to Loud’s Cabin, but you can find it here

I basically took the 7 Bridges Trail (622) to 677 to 622A to Loud’s Cabin. Here are the pictures:

Along the way we saw some curious tracks in the snow. They were about 5-6 inches long and distanced about a foot to a foot and a half apart. It took us a while to figure out they were turkey tracks. It would have been much cooler had they been emu or velociraptor tracks or something, as they seemed too big to be turkey tracks…

Once at Loud’s Cabin things once again got tricky. I’d made a GPX file from CalTopo with the way we were supposed to go, but the trails were no longer there. We decided to ascend the hill above the cabin and head west. It became apparent almost immediately we were on the wrong ‘trail’ but we were on a trail and headed in the right direction and felt committed… until it ended.

I noticed a few cairns so we followed them for a bit until they ended as well. I’m guessing the cairns were indicating an alternate route up Mt Garfield.

We weren’t interested in hiking Mt Garfield today, so we left the cairns and aimed northwest along the side of the mountain, making our own trail as we went. This included some fun scrambling over rocks and fallen logs. Be careful: those rocks and logs move!

Also, here we saw the first near tracks of the season! I’m thinking mama and cub

We had great views of Tuckaway when the trees cleared (which wasn’t that often). The frustrating part? We didn’t seem to be getting any closer. In fact, it felt like the mountain was always in the same place (well, it was, but we weren’t making much progress).

This was our view of Tuckaway most of the time

Finally we made it to the top of a rock formation at about 10,400’

Here’s the view looking back at the way we’d circled Mt Garfield

And a look at the route before us towards Tuckaway

There were tons of ways we could have traversed over to Tuckaway, and we actually went back and forth while we were hiking as to the best way: there’s snow you cannot see in a lot of areas that would make certain routes lousy. We’d initially wanted to just hike across the ridge, but instead this is the path we took:

I got a picture because the view was great

And we were off, deciding to initially descend this spot to the north (where we came across a mine not listed on the map), and then head west down some snow covered boulders. The scree here was really soft and felt a bit like quicksand.

There are no great pictures here, as we were just in the trees headed towards the saddle just before Tuckaway. When we reached the saddle it was time to don our snowshoes. We trenched a trail from the saddle to the west and came across my tracks from last week.

My tracks eventually ended and we had a time sinking up to our waist in the soft snow, but we were stubborn and took turns trenching: we could see the blue skies above indicating a ridge and were determined to summit today

We made it to the ridge and to our immediate left was a cairn. This is where I’d stopped a few years ago, thinking this must be the summit (cairns like this usually indicate a summit).

It certainly looked/felt like the summit, and indeed, from here you cannot see a higher spot. However, I’d had someone (not so nicely) comment on my blog that I hadn’t reached the true summit; that it was in fact further to the west. So today I was here (again) to see if he was right. We decided to follow the ridge west, through several feet of snow (I love snowshoes!!!) gaining and losing elevation as we went.

After about 2/10ths of a mile we came to a point I wasn’t convinced was higher than where we’d been before but was definitely the spot I’d seen in other one person’s picture as the summit. There was no summit register here either and no cairn indicating a summit.

We decided to climb the rock, which took careful footing and a leap of faith. Here’s Steffen heading back

Here is my summit photo

And some of the amazing views from on top of the rock

We took a summit selfie

And I got another shot of the way back down

Side note: As I said earlier, I wasn’t convinced this point was any higher than the point we were at before, so once I got home I put the route up on CalTopo. It showed the second point was indeed 3 feet higher than the first, but I hadn’t climbed to the top of the first rock like I had the second. In other words, I think both places are of similar height, and in fact, while the rock was difficult to climb I’d say the route I took the first time was more challenging than the one I took today. In any event, either way, we summited because we made it to both points. I think either point should count on its own.
We decided to descend the way I’d trekked last week, and followed our snow tracks to the saddle

And back down the gully to the trail I took last time.

What’s frustrating here is the trail that’s on ALL the maps, GPX files, etc. is a trail the forest service doesn’t want you to take. They’ve made it extremely difficult to follow because they don’t want people hiking there. They’ve essentially tried to close this trial.

I totally get this, but the problem is they haven’t established new trails/produced proper GPX files, etc. of new routes. This is the best they give, which is a poor excuse for a map and doesn’t include topographic features or mountain names. It’s like they want you to get lost

I’ve been in this area several times and their new trails are terrible and are meant for dirt bikes, not hikers. It’s really frustrating: I’d set out today to follow proper (new) trails and provide a GPX file for others interested but was unable to do so due to lack of information. In my topo picture at the end it shows I followed the trail on my return, but that’s the one they’ve blocked off, so it isn’t actually a trail. IT was however, my safest option.
We encountered a lot of snow on the trail on the way back, and instead of complaining about how we kept on postholing we decided to make it fun. Here’s Steffen trying to get across the snow without sinking by running fast (spoiler alert: that doesn’t work)

We made it back to just below Loud’s Cabin, linked back up with Trail 667, and followed it back to the parking lot

We were surprised to find when we made it back to the lot that it was overflowing with cars!

What was disturbing was about a third of these vehicles were from out of state. We’re supposed to be staying home and hiking only in our respective county, and I’m doing my best to abide by those rules (before they get worse). It was extremely frustrating to see so many out of state cars, and they just kept going and going and going: the lot was overflowing and cars were parked along the side of the road for miles as we exited. There were more cars here than I’ve ever seen in the summer. It must be Spring Break in other states and they’ve decided to still take their vacations.
We made it back to the truck at 3:30pm, making this a 12.5 mile hike with 4220’ of elevation gain in about 8 hours. It was a perfect day to go hiking!!! I’m so glad we got out and got some fresh air!

PT 10245

RT Length – 14.15 miles

Elevation Gain – 4000′

Time – 7 hours

After our misguided attempt at PT 10245 a few weeks ago we really wanted to summit this peak asap, but the weather wasn’t cooperating and my cookie deliveries kept getting in the way. Finally, today seemed like a good day to try it again.

We arrived at the Barr Trail parking lot at 5:30am and were on the trail by 5:45am. The parking situation is the same as last time: $10 via card at the kiosk.

From the beginning microspikes were necessary. We kept them on for the entire hike.

The creek just after the Barr Trail / Incline turnoff was flowing nicely

The ‘cave’ had some snow

Just before the experimental forest, where the path was all ice 2 weeks ago it was now covered in several inches of snow and nicely trenched. This made it much easier to navigate.

We turned left at the experimental forest and continued along the well trenched Barr trail.

Past mile marker 5.5

Here’s where we messed up last time: We had gone all the way to Barr Camp (6.5 miles) and at the advice of the guy staffing Barr Camp took the trail just after Barr Camp, ending up at AdAmAn Peak instead of PT 10245. To be fair, the routes are strikingly similar, and while AdAmAn is unranked, it is taller than 10245 at 10405′. This time we were prepared and looked for trail 671, which is about a mile before Barr Camp. This is where we found it:

I’m sure there’s an actual trail here, but today it was covered in snow and not detectable. We put on our snowshoes and got ready to trench. At the above sign we left the Barr Trail and headed right (north), trenching our own trail, skirting the rock formation to the left

and heading down a small hill, losing about 200 feet of elevation before coming to a creek and turning left (northwest).

Here I was able to pick up the trail again anf followed it around the creek. Please note, this was NOT South Fork French Creek, but a willow filled off shoot.

We followed the ‘trail’ until it seemed to end. We were just about parallel with AdAmAn peak at this point. Here we turned right (northeast) and could see PT 10245

We were going to have to cross an aspen grove to get to the peak. When we were right in the thick of it Steffen said: “This looks like the type of place you’d see a moose” and about 2 steps later we saw evidence a moose had spent the night here. In fact, on our way back we saw moose tracks going over/through our trench, so we must have scared him/her away with our approach.

Once past the aspen grove we were in the willows. I’m pretty sure this is where we crossed French Creek, but it was frozen and covered with snow so all we saw was a marshy area. Trenching here wasn’t fun: I sank up to my thighs several times. Here’s the path we took through the trees to the summit

There were large boulders everywhere, and a band of boulder piles to the right that weren’t climbable. Sticking center left of the mountain seemed to work well.

At several points we wanted to take off our snowshoes, but then we’d encounter snow that made us thankful we hadn’t. The summit was located to the left, at the mountain’s northernmost point. There was a cairn indicating the summit. We sumited at 9:50am

There were beautiful views of Pikes Peak, with AdAmAn Peak below (the pile of rocks in the center of the photo).

We took summit photos

and headed back down, solidifying our trench

back through the willows

and to Barr Trail, where we took off our snowshoes and continued our descent. The trench on the trail was indeed deep in places, and microspikes were still appreciated after the incline cutoff.

We made it back to my truck at 12:45pm, making this a 14.15 mile hike with 4000′ of elevation gain in 7 hours. I got a bunch of pictures on the way back, but unfortunately I’m still learning how to use my camera and it had been stuck on ‘program’ mode for the entire hike down, making my pictures all dark and fuzzy. We gave each other a high-five at the bottom, glad to be able to say we’d actually summited the correct peak this time. Check off another El Paso County Highpoint! Here’s a link to the GPX file, for those interested.

Screen Shot 2020-02-17 at 8.15.28 AM

Colored Peaks

RT Length: 15.5 miles

Elevation Gain: 4692’

Partner: Steffen

I’m calling this post “Colored Peaks” because really, there were 6 peaks and it would have taken too long to title: Gold Flake – 10165, Red Flake – 10650, Blue Mountain – 9856, Yellow Mountain – 9982, Black Mountain (UR) – 10132, & Green Mountain – 10140

The forecast for wind today was between 70-90mph up high, so instead of hiking above treeline today we chose to hike some 10K and 9K peaks. It was still pretty windy, but at least we weren’t being blown away. We got a bit of a late start because Old Stage Road takes forever to drive. It’s nicely plowed but still icy in the morning. I decided to park at the furthest peak first and work our way back. The first two peaks were each less than a mile in length, and more like warm-ups for the rest of the day. I’m really glad we decided to do them first because if we’d left them for the end I’m not sure we would have summited them.

Gold Flake – 10165 (so named because of the gold tin and golden morning)

I parked my truck on the side of the road and we headed east through the trees

And then south to the (rocky) summit.

There were no views on this summit, so we took a quick picture

Signed and replaced the summit register

And made our way back to the truck.

This was a very simple and straightforward trek up and down the mountain (without a trail or views).

Red Flake – 10650’ (so named because of the red tin)

We hopped in the truck, leaving on all our gear, and headed to the next trailhead. There wasn’t a place to park so I parked on top of a dirt berm near a shooting area littered with shell casings and we headed southwest up the side of the mountain.

There was more snow here, but luckily we soon came upon a trench! It looked over a week old, but made route finding much easier. We found a microspike on the trail. I attached it to Steffen’s pack and we took it out with us.

The trench led us to another rocky summit without any views

We signed and replaced the summit register and were quickly on our way back down.

Two easy peaks down, we now drove Old Stage Road to 371 and took that 4WD dirt road south to Emerald Valley Ranch, where I parked next to a locked gate.

Blue Mountain – 9856’

Emerald Valley Ranch is now owned by the Broadmoor, but was originally purchased as a Girl Scout Camp, and then sold to Spencer Penrose.

We started out hiking southwest along the road

There was a locked gate, but no ‘no trespassing’ sign and tons of footprints, so we just went through the gate

I found some pieces to a hornets’ nest in the snow. At first I thought it was the entire nest buried, but it ended up just being a few pieces.

The road was supposed to lead us near Emerald Valley Boys Camp, but we didn’t see any evidence of that. Instead we came to what was left of an old cabin. We looked around for a bit and then headed south.

The trench stopped at the cabin and there was no trail here, so we bushwhacked our way south up the mountainside, following deer/animal tracks when available.

We came upon a small lashed structure that looked to have been lashed recently. Maybe this was part of the Boys’ camp? It would make a good tent if you brought along a tarp.

Onward and upward! Check it out: I found some pieces to another hornets’ nest! Kind of cool, considering it was over a mile away from the last one

We were still straddling the ravine until we made it to the ridge

This was our aim

Once we made it to the ridge it started snowing, which was weird because snow wasn’t in the forecast for today. The wind also picked up, but since we were below treeline it was tolerable. Notice all the deer/elk chews on the trees? We saw them all day, and tons of scat as well (from Deer, Elk, and Bighorn Sheep)

The ridge seemed to last forever! Every time we thought we were at the summit the route would dip down and then back up again

There were so many downed trees! Branches and limbs were scattered everywhere. We had to go around large piles of dead trees and circle back again several times to stay on the ridge.

There were several places that looked like the true summit. We walked around them all but agreed the highest point was the one furthest to the southeast. None of the high areas had a summit register, so we left one and since it was cold turned around and headed back down the ridge, being careful to stay on the ridge this time and not heading back down the gully

Yellow Peak – 9982’

The skies suddenly cleared and we were treated to a great view of the peaks we hiked last weekend: Knights, McKinley, and San Luis

The ridge had some open areas that looked great for grazing and lots of aspens with bite marks

Here’s the last bit of the trek to the summit

We followed the ridge all the way to 9982, which we named “Yellow Peak” because it fit and because there was yellow duct tape on the summit register.

Here’s looking back on Blue Mountain

Black Mountain (UR) – 10,132’

At this point we had a decision to make: we either turned back now and headed back to the ruins/Emerald Valley Boys Camp area, or we made this a loop and continued on. I was a bit worried because I hadn’t brought a flashlight and if we continued I knew we’d be hiking out in the dark. Luckily Steffen had one in his backpack and we were feeling great so we decided to keep going and hit a few more peaks today. We continued west down the mountain to a small saddle on a game trail, and once at the saddle picked up an actual trail.

That led to a 4wd road! This was great!

We followed the road west for quite a ways, past a run-down cabin and a couple of homes sporting tons of elk antlers

We could have followed the road up to the saddle, but at the time we didn’t know this, instead we cut across a field and headed south up the mountain (through a lot of snow)

There wasn’t a lot of elevation gain on this one since it’s an unranked peak, and it didn’t take us long to make it to the summit.

There wasn’t a summit register on this peak. We would have left one but we didn’t have one to leave.

Turning to the northwest we could see our last summit of the day:

Green Mountain – 10,140’

This really was a simple hike northwest past the road and up to the summit of Green Mountain.

When we arrived we had a great view of Black Mountain

There was what looked to be a mine at the summit?

We walked all along the top of the summit just to make sure we hit the actual ‘high point’. We were unable to find a summit register for this one either, and were a bit disappointed until Steffen got an idea: he decided to look inside this stump and guess what? There it was! It hadn’t been signed since 2010 so I’m sure no one else had thought to look inside the stump since then.

We signed the register and put a cairn on top of the tree so others would know it’s there

Time to make this a loop! We traveled west down the ridge, avoiding this outcropping by navigating it to the left

This quickly brought us to the road

We followed it and were surprised to come across a gate. The only thing to do was climb over it. When we made it to the other side we realized we were now on the ‘right side’ of the gate. Curious though, since we hadn’t seen any other gates/no trespassing signs on our way in?

A little ways after the gate, and just before the road curved west, we saw a cairn to our left (well, a rock on a log) and followed a faint trail down the mountainside.

Eventually the snow stopped and we descended a steep pipeline/scree slope to another 4WD road.

I was excited to finally make it to this road! We still had quite a ways to hike, but now all we had to do was follow this road out. Well, I was excited until the road became covered in snow.

The snow was about 2 feet deep and snowshoes would have helped greatly, but we didn’t have any. Instead we took turns trenching and walking in each others’ footsteps. I could tell this was especially taxing for Steffen. I’m used to going for long hikes without eating/drinking anything. My body is just used to it, but his isn’t. Although he’d had plenty of snacks today and was currently out of water because he’d drank it all, he was tired, hungry, and thirsty. He’d already taken a few Advil and I was worried about him hiking in the dark. And then it started to snow.

He stopped to take another Advil and we heard a large cat scream twice to our left. We decided to double the pace towards the ruined cabin. At times there were animal tracks to follow, but most of the time we were trenching through several feet of snow.

I was excited again when we finally made it to the ruins: we now had less than a mile to go!

This was the easiest part because the trenching stopped and we followed our footsteps in. We made it back to my truck around 6:30pm, making this a 15.5 mile trek with 4692’ of elevation gain in 10 hours, 45 minutes.

I was proud of Steffen! This was the longest hike he’s ever done. He was exhausted, and offered to cook me steak to celebrate when I dropped him off at home.