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On Friday 8/21/2015 I bagged (in order of appearance) Red Cloud, Sunshine, and Handies. I drove to Lake City area on Thursday night (8.20.2015) after work and camped in the back of my jeep down a county road I found on google earth. I had my alarm set for 5:30 am but didn't get up until 6:45. I headed for the Red Cloud / Sunshine trailhead, arriving at the TH around 7:30. I ate some breakfast and hit the trail at 8am which was a little later than expected. The hiking was uneventful, just one foot in front of the other for a few miles until I hit the Red Cloud Summit at 10:10am. It was a clear and sunny all the way up and I spent about 25 minutes on the summit of Red Cloud shooting a few texts to my wife before heading over to Sunshine. The traverse took me 38 minutes, and once on top of Sunshine I was able to get a call out to the Mrs while eating some lunch. I debated whether or not to take the Northwest Face Route off of Sunshine but decided against it. It doesn't look fun with all of the talus and scree, so I decided to return back over Red Cloud.
I arrived back at my car around 2pm and made some lunch while fighting the relentless flies by the creek at the TH. I filtered some water and headed over towards Handies. My plan was to drive over to the upper Handies TH and camp, then hike Handies on saturday morning. However, when I arrived at the upper TH it was still pretty clear so I decided to go for the summit of Handies and knock them all out in a day. I started up the trail and after hiking for 30 min, I was a mile up the trail and heard thunder. I decided I better turn around and head back to the car, which I'm glad I did. As soon as I got back to the car, it began to downpour. I sat in my jeep, waiting out the storm, and while doing so, a truck pulled up next to me to wait out the rain.
The rain lasted about 30 min and once it stopped, the guys in the truck next to me got out and knocked on my window to see if I wanted to hike Handies. I said sure so we all geared up, and headed up the mountain. I had already put in 14 miles this day (12 on SS & RC, and 2 starting & returning to my car on Handies), but I figured I'd give it a shot.
A hour and 15 minutes later I was on the summit of Handies, marking 16.5 miles for the day and my 3rd summit. It was nice to knock them all out in a day, but the sun was setting quick at this point so I didn't spend much time up there, maybe 10 minutes. I started down and got back to my car in about 50 minutes at 7:45pm. I quickly setup my tent, made some dinner and headed to bed.
Handies Peak Summit
My GPS Tracks on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
That was quite a feat. A group of us from Ohio are coming out in a couple of weeks to do Handies and we might even try one of the others. Your report has helped us. Of course we can’t match your time because we are older and live at 800’ elevation. Was the trailheads at GrizGulch and AmericanBasin crowded??? Last time we were there several years ago they were pretty crowded.
did you take the dog on all 3 summits? I’d like to do the same but that seems like a lot of mileage for a dog...or can most of the dogs go much farther than I give them credit for? If you took yours the whole way, do you mind sharing the weight and age of the dog? Mine is about a year and 45 lbs; I’ve taken her on about 8–9 miles but I’d think anything over 12 would start to be too much...thoughts?
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