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After finishing classes on Friday afternoon, I took the long but pleasantly uneventful drive out to Lake City from Fort Collins. Knowing I had a long day planned with potentially unfavorable weather, I opted to begin hiking at the fine hour of 4:30 am. Storms from the previous night had left a light dusting of snow as I ascended up Sundog.
Heading up Sundog's north ridge
After summiting Sundog, I traversed over to Sunshine. En route, the clouds finally gave way to reveal the peaks to the south.
Sunrise on Half, Quarter, and friends
After summiting Sunshine, I traversed to Redcloud, 13832, and 13811. This section was relatively straightforward and trails helped speed progress.
13832 from the saddle with RedcloudLooking out to 13811 from 1383213832 from 13811
Once I had returned to the Redcloud-13832 saddle, I began to make my way north along the ridge to Cooper Creak Peak. This mostly involved sidehilling (made less fun by the snow) and traversing around various rotten towers. The final push up Cooper was mellow and pleasant.
Heading towards Cooper Creek Peak from the Redcloud-13832 saddleLook back at the volcanic towers between 13832 and Cooper Creek Peak
Once on Cooper, the traverse to Every was very straightforward. The traverse over to Gudy however was far more involved. The crux of this section was a class 3 headwall on relatively solid rock.
Looking over to Gudy Peak from Every Mountain's ridgeGetting closer to the class 3 headwallClass 3 headwall up closeSummit ridge of Gudy
From Gudy, CT was a short and pleasant climb. Summiting 13540 proved to be the hardest section of the day. Once again, I first had to climb a headwall of class 3 rock (much less stable this time) followed directly by multiple cornices along the ridge. While the rock quality wasn't awful it certainly would be much less fun had this section been class 4.
13540 from the ridge of CT PeakRotten ridge of 13540Final summit push up 13540
After summiting 13540, I went and grabbed 13427 with little fuss and glissaded most of the way back down to the road.
Sunshine, Redcloud, and Sundog from the road
Overall, a very pleasant day! The snow was generally supportive, making the multiple cornices I had to climb much more pleasant and the weather ended up being an optimal level of cloudy without storming. Certainly a nice way to link up 11 peaks!
My GPS Tracks on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
I haven't been over to the Telluride area yet so I personally can't say, but it seems mostly to be due to melting. Some areas were still really deep, but pretty consolidated due to the freeze-thaw.
A year or so back, the road from Lake City to Burrows Park TH (where trails to Handies as well as Redcloud/Sunshine both begin) was pretty washed out.
What is the condition of the road between these points like now? Did BLM repair it at all? Any spots to worry about? Better spots to park and hike up to this trailhead if needed? Just trying to find out as much detailed info about this before I head out, as it's a long trip from where I'm at in SW Colorado and want to make sure trip out there is worth the drive.
Yes, it is still very washed out. My Subaru made it but a 2WD vehicle most likely wouldn't. No tricky spots, in particular, just large puddles and ruts. Not sure about alternate trailheads, unfortunately.
I made it with little fuss in my non-lifted forester so you should be good.
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