HURON PEAK 8/9/85

HURON PEAK 14,005'


Mountain........Huron Peak
Elevation.........14,005
Rank...............52nd
Range..............Sawatch
Trail length......4.5 miles
Elevation gain..3,800'
Difficulty..........**
Comments........Storms all around

TRIP REPORT

8/9/85

After spending a pleasant rest day in Aspen, we were ready to run up one of the 'easy' peaks. Huron seemed to be the summit of choice, so once again we set off in our trusty rental car. The approach road to Winfield became impassable for 2-wheel drive way too soon. We had trouble finding room to park without blocking the road. Finally, after setting the car atop some large boulders, we started up a road that branched off the main road to the left, but we soon decided it wasn't the correct route. We bushwhacked back down to the main road and hiked several miles past campsites occupied by people with 4WD vehicles to where the road finally ended and turned into a trail.
About this time, a lot of lightning and thunder and a little rain began to enliven things. We hurried along, and soon came to the old mining town of Hamilton. There were only a few crumbling ruins left. At this point, we took a fork to the left and started uphill, passing a few more ruins along the way. Eventually we came to open bouldery slopes with hard-to-follow cairns. The storms were intensifying on the surrounding peaks, but did not seem to be approaching Huron, so after a 30-minute caution break we began searching for the best route to the summit.

We hiked a long way around the side of the mountain and finally found two chutes that seemed to lead to the summit ridge. I picked one to the left, Richard took one on the right, and we didn't see each other again until about 1200' later, when we both exited our chutes at the same time and scrambled to the ridge top.

There were still storms around the peak, but not on it, and by now we were determined to make the summit, so we continued. Following the ridge to the summit was like playing chutes and ladders - we had to scramble down and up several gaps in the ridge but steadily got higher until at last we reached the summit. There were nice views of the 'Three Apostles', including Ice Mountain, and a good deal of the Sawatch, but we were cold, tired and miserable and the wind was very strong, so we didn't stay long.

We dropped into a chute leading directly off the peak. It was typical loose-rock with some tricky spots, but we managed okay with a combination of scree-hopping and butt-sliding. Soon we were back to the grassy, bouldery slope, but couldn't find the cairn-marked route so we just headed downhill into the woods and bushwhacked until we came to the edge of the South Fork of Clear Creek. We followed the creek downstream and finally struck the trail. Then it was just a long trudge back to the car, after which we decided seven peaks was enough for a 7-day vacation.

So we drove off to Boulder and visited our friend Mitch, who showed us the sights around town - mostly in Boulder Square, where we were assaulted by a bad Bob Dylan imitation, an unskilled zither player, and an unfunny comic. Then we headed back to Denver and flew home, half done with Fourteener-bagging!