June 24: Stayed in a cabin in Lake City overnight.
June 25: Up at 0330, on the road by 0400, at the Silver Creek/Grizzly Gulch trailhead by 0500. The 4WD trail up to the trailhead wasn't super hard, we used a stock Nissan Frontier. No concerns with clearance or trail width. Began hiking with head lamps at 0500. First photo shows the view looking backwards down the trail once you gain the ridgeline. Sumitted Redcloud and didn't stop (photo 2), just went straight on to Sunlight. Sumitted Sunlight at 0830 (photo 3). Spent about 20 mins on the peak, then back to Redcloud, re-summitting at 0940 (photo 4). Spent maybe 20 mins on the peak and headed back down to the trailhead, getting back to the truck by around 1120. Total round trip distance for these two peaks came out to about 13 miles. Next, we went on to Handies Peak. Drove on a more difficult (but still completely doable) 4WD trail to the American Basin trailhead, which took about an hour going from Silver Creek/Grizzly Gulch trailhead. Parked at the trailhead and began climbing at about 1230 (photos 5 and 6). Summitted at 1420 (photo 7). Back to the truck and trailhead by 1600. Total round trip for this peak was about 6 miles. Total mileage for the day was about 23 miles. Stayed another night in Lake City. Overall three relatively easy peaks, great conditions, perfect weather.
June 26: Up at 0430, on the road by 0500. Drove to Mount Princeton Road trailhead, arriving at about 0715. The 4WD road is VERY narrow, so if you come face to face with someone going the opposite direction, it makes it very difficult to get around each other. The 4WD road is not the easiest, but again, it is pretty doable as long as you're slow and careful. Drove past the radio towers and parked around 11,100'. Began hiking about 0800 on the rest of the 4WD road. We missed the turnoff for the Mount Princeton trail because its pretty much not marked...theres no sign of any kind. There were the remnants of a yellow tow strap tied around a stump but since we didn't pay attention to the directions/Alltrails route we missed it and continued about 3/4 mile up the road until it ended, then accidentally began the trail over to Mount Tigger. That's when we realized we were on the wrong trail, we turned around, spotting the proper Mount Princeton trail turnoff on the way back down the 4WD road. Came through a short portion of green meadow before hitting the rock around 12,000'. It was VERY slow going the rest of the way, there's no quick way across the rock, and once you get past the gullies (some of which still had snow) around 13,000', the Ridgeline is even more rock, but even less stable. Its incredibly slow going the rest of the way up. Finally sumitted at around 1145. The summit was full of bugs...horseflies and gnats. I've never seen anything like it. They landed all over us and any food we tried to eat. The weather was turning as well so after only 15 mins we started to head down. Incredibly slow going, and then rain began as well, which made the rocks slippery. Finally got back to the truck about 1500. Because of the extra 1.5 miles we added, it took us about 7 hours to complete 8 miles.
Overall we were shocked at the difficulty of Mount Princeton mostly due to the rock. It is by far my least favorite of the 30 14ers I have done so far.
