Fancy Peak – 13,176

RT Length: 9.69 miles

Elevation Gain: 3208’

Note: I carried my snowshoes the entire way just in case I needed to trench, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it already done. Thank you to yaktoleft13 for trenching the route the previous day!

I arrived at the Fancy Lake trailhead and was on the trail at 6:30am. The drive in was on a 2WD dirt road, easily accessible except for the last 2 miles, which had a couple of inches of snow still on the ground. Luckily, enough vehicles had driven through the snow and there were bare spots to still keep this a 2WD road. The beginning of the trail is obvious. The trailhead has clean bathrooms and plenty of parking.

I followed Fancy Lake Trail 2006 for 3.3 miles northwest to Fancy Lake. This is a class 1 trail and easy to follow. There was a nice footbridge at the crossing over Fancy Creek.

I sat and admired Fancy Lake for a bit, as it was a beautiful day

From the lake I turned and headed east, to continue following the trail to Fancy Pass.

It was a total of 4.25 miles from the trailhead to Fancy Pass. At the pass, I dipped down to avoid the class 3 section, then gained the ridge as quickly as I could.

The downclimb to avoid the class 3 section was easy, class 2 (there might even be a trail here in summer)

Ascending the ridge was quite steep on tundra

While ascending to the ridge, I did my best to avoid the rock outcroppings

Here you can see the first false summit. I aimed for the ridge to gain this point.

From this point on, it was a ridge hike north. A long, class 2 ridge hike.

Here are some pictures of the ridge

At the base of the summit, I went right to avoid the snow

Then easily gained the peak

I summited Fancy Peak at 10:45am

Fancy Peak:

Here’s a look back down the ridge

This was an out and back hike for me, so I retraced my steps back to the ridge

Then followed the ridge south

This was my descent route back to Fancy Pass

Back at Fancy Pass, I followed the trail east back to Fancy Lake

Then I followed the trail southeast back to the trailhead

I made it back to the trailhead at 1pm, making this a 9.69 mile hike with 3208’ of elevation gain in 6 hours, 30 minutes.

On to the next trailhead!