Red Mountain Pass – Wild Wanderer

RT Length: 8.39 miles

Elevation Gain: 2744’

I’d spent the past few days dispersed camping at Red Mountain Pass, which is where I began my hike.

I was up and on the trail at 5am, hoping to beat today’s storms and make it to Independence Pass to join some friends camping that afternoon. I started our following the dirt road for .75 miles

Just before the Black Bear Pass / Porphyry Basin junction, I turned right onto a side trail. A 4WD vehicle can easily make it here. There’s room for one vehicle to park (yesterday I saw a full-sized Ford F250 parked here).

I was now on a “pack trail” that looks like it used to be a road. I followed this trail until I came to a mine.

This is where I left the “trail” and route finding became tricky in the dark. In the daylight, it’s pretty easy. There are a few game trails here, which I tried to pick up when I could find them.

Here’s the route I took after the mine

And some step-by-step pictures as I made my way northeast, hugging the mountainside

I crossed a mining area, then headed up the slope

I now had a view of how I wanted to gain the ridge. I was initially going to gain it to the left, and this would have worked as well, but I saw a small herd of deer grazing and I didn’t want to disturb them

This is how I gained the ridge, on easy, class 2 terrain

Once on the ridge, I followed it north towards the summit, as the tundra gave way to shale, which had game trails to follow

I summited PT 13509 at 7:20am

PT 13509:

I could see the town of Telluride to the west

Looking north, I could see Telluride Peak

To get there, I made my way northeast to the 13509/Telluride saddle, then northwest to the summit of Telluride. This was a chossy, class 2 ridge hike with a few game trails mixed in.

The easiest way to access the summit is from a class 2 ramp to the left of the summit boulder

I summited Telluride Peak at 8am

Telluride Peak:

Now to head back to the trailhead. I looked southeast, and could see Ptarmigan Lake. I didn’t want to descend that low, so instead I made my way back to the 13509/Telluride saddle

I then continued heading southeast to this point

Once there, I turned right and hugged the side of PT 13265 until I came to a gully

I descended the gully, and aimed for an old cabin I could see to my right

Here’s looking back at the gully I descended

At the cabin I turned left, and headed south through the basin

As I descended, I could see my route in, and decided to take the same route out of the basin. I could even see the game trail that picked up on the other side (it doesn’t last for long).

Back on the “trail” I followed it southeast as it hugged the mountainside

Then it was back down the drainage that led to the mine

Back at the mine, I picked up the trail that led me back to the 4WD road

Then I followed the road back down to Red Mountain Pass

I made it back to the trailhead at 9:30am, making this an 8.39 mile hike with 2744’ of elevation gain in 4.5 hours.

On to the next trailhead!

RT Length: 9.52 miles

Elevation Gain: 3260’

I’m not gunna lie, this was my third attempt at T10. I’d attempted it twice earlier this year, when there was too much snow to access from the Three Needles side, and another time when I felt the terrain was too loose on the Trico side. Both times I’d made it to within 100 feet of the summit, but called it for safety reasons. Also, I’d been in the area, took a bunch of pictures, and I had a plan. I wanted to make this a class 2 hike in a different way. Spoiler alert: I was unable to make that happen. Sorry folks, T10 is class 2D/2+ (both mean steep scree, and honestly, I’d much rather climb a class 3 peak) from Black Bear Pass, sketchy class 3 from the Three Needles side.

I was parked at Red Mountain Pass, which had a sign indicating Black Bear Pass was closed to vehicular traffic. Now, a 4WD vehicle can make it to the pass from this side (it was open when I was here in July of this year) but they’ve closed the gate, presumably from difficulties on the other side of the pass, because this side was and has been clear to go.

I and on the trail at 5:30am. I took 4WD 823 to the Black Bear Pass/Prophyry Basin junction.

I quickly came to the Black Bear Pass/Prophyry Basin junction and continued straight towards Black Bear Pass

Although steep at times, a standard 4WD should be able to make it to the pass if it were open

The pass was indeed closed to vehicular traffic.

I walked around the closure and continued towards Mineral Basin.

The road continues through Mineral Basin all the way to Black Bear Pass. I could now see T10

The road splits before the pass, but both roads circle back to the same place. I’m assuming the road to the left is for when there’s still snow on the main road, as there was late July of this year.

There is an obvious road that goes all the way to the base of T10

At the end of the road I sat down and strapped on my helmet and microspikes, and looked at the route up.

Last time, I’d gone too far to the right, and the terrain became too steep to climb. This time I stayed more to the middle.

There were tons of game trails here, which most likely weren’t game trails at all but runouts from the snow. The rocks were not stable, no matter what size they were. Lots of scree here as well. Here are some pictures of my route up T10. Be forewarned, it looks like the rocks shift every year. Some large rocks were in a different place than they were 2 months ago.

Once on the ridge the summit was clear.

Here you can see the ‘other’ 13477 to the left and the summit cairn circled)

I summited T10 at 7:30am

T10:

There was a storm coming in, so it was windy and cold. I didn’t stay long, and instead headed back down towards Black Bear Pass the way I’d summited

Back down on the road, I looked over at Trico Peak, and around at the weather.

It had been sprinkling off and on, and the wind was fierce, but I knew from the last time I did Trico it was a quick and straightforward hike. I decided to go for it. This is the overall route I took

After the road ends, there is a game trail that goes pretty much all the way to the summit, keeping Trico Peak class 2.

I summited Trico Peak at 8:20am

Trico Peak:

I’d made it, but the wind was fierce, and I could see storms all around me. I jogged back down to the pass, stopping only a few times to take pictures of the route