Our daughter hiked all the way to the top of an unnamed peak at 12,812 from Independence Pass. The trip was about 4 miles and 800 ft. of elevation gain. She was a TROOPER and never complained once. We were so proud of her! One of the ways she was motivated to keep going and get to the top was the hope of finding "gems" under the rocks at the summit. She found a couple along the way on the trail (carefully placed there by unknown mountain creatures) that kept her excited to get to the top, but also slowed her down as she was searching for more along the way :)
Lady Washington is that "little" bump of a hill to the right of the famous 14er, Longs Peak. It sees little traffic due to it's elevation being only in the low 13,000's. Longs is a physically and mentally challenging peak to climb. When you finish, you have a sense of accomplishment, but you just want to sleep afterward. For about half the distance and a thousand feet of of elevation gain less, you get to enjoy your day a bit more and have one of the coolest views from the summit of any mountain in Colorado.
The hike was pretty fun and there was a bit of scrambling up large boulders toward the top. Tim has been running marathons and pushes me on the trail sections of our hikes, but slows down closer to my pace when we start scrambling up or down. Overall, I think it took us about 6 hours of hiking time from car to car with the true reward being the airy view of the east face of Longs Peak!
Mt. Silverheels is an off trail hike of 9 round trip miles with 3,500 ft. elevation gain starting from Hoosier Pass near Breckenridge. Though there is no trail, the hiking on tundra is pleasant. I'd hiked Hoosier Ridge and North Star Mountain in the past from this trailhead and thought I was pretty familiar with the area so we didn't study the route very well beforehand. We ended up getting a little bit off and descending a bit further down below the mine which added about 4-500 ft. of unnecessary gain.
We woke 20 minutes before sunrise and made quick work of the short hike to the treeline to catch the dawn. Sunrise was very colorful! No matter how many of these I witness, they never get old.
The rest of the way we went slower and took our time enjoying the views. We reached the summit around 10 a.m. A thunderstorm moved in very quickly from the northwest and we didn't linger long.
Silverheels
360 summit video
Grays and Torreys at center
As we descended, the storm grew closer. We could hear thunder claps right up toward Hoosier Ridge and we considered bailing down into the shelter of the trees to bushwhack down Scott Gulch. Hopefully, we'd find our way back to the highway and then walk up the road back to our car. This would have taken much more time than the direct route up to the ridge and back down. We couldn't decide what to do. So, we said a prayer and made the choice to hike up toward the storm and the standard route with the intention that if it got worse, we would quickly descend back down. The higher we hiked toward the ridge, the more the storm cleared out! By the time we reached the top, the storms had cleared all the way and it was sunny and pleasant. We had a lunch break and enjoyed the rest of the descent back.
